


Blood is Thicker than Water

by A_Perverted_Romance_Addict



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ADHD, Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Animal Traits, Animal Transformation, Bottom Harry Potter, Breeding Kink, Dimension Travel, Don't copy to another site, Dyslexia, Elemental Magic, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Genetic Engineering, Humor, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Kid Fic, M/M, No character bashing, Parent Harry Potter, Parent Voldemort (Harry Potter), Parenthood, Pre-Slash, Pregnancy Kink, Referenced Kidnapping, Referenced violence, Smut, Suicide Attempt, Symbionts, Top Tom Riddle, Top Voldemort (Harry Potter), domestic fluff and angst, referenced miscarriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 64,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27874821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Perverted_Romance_Addict/pseuds/A_Perverted_Romance_Addict
Summary: Voldemort had risen again, ready to resume his war effort and continue his pursuit of Harry Potter. If only the six dimension-travelling menaces that claim to be children of Lord Voldemort and his consort Harry Riddle née Potter weren’t distracting him so much.Seriously, him making that infernal boy his consort and the mother of his children? Absolutely preposterous. What was the other Voldemort thinking? Having children with Potter and six of them.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 437
Kudos: 873
Collections: Harry Potter x Voldemort/Tom Riddle, Harrymort/Tomarry Recs for the Soul, Tomarry/Harrymort Best of the Best Works





	1. A Perfectly Imperfect Family

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, here is the story I've been working on for the past month or so. I figured that after reading many a Tomarry/Harrymort kid fics I could write my own, give it my own twist and here is the result. As of now, there are plans for a sequel, but I will see if I want to make this into a series or not as I work my way through the final third of this story and people's response.
> 
> While this story certainly has lots of humorous moments, it is also a very heavy work that deals with plenty of mental and emotional issues. And while this story does have romance and some smut in it, its focus is on the importance of family - something Voldemort comes to realise through his interaction with his counterpart's children and what the other Voldemort (who is a workaholic) comes to realise after his children disappear to another dimension.
> 
> I'm really proud of what I have accomplished, but slightly nervous to share it. It's always nerve-wrecking when you put something you've worked on with love and care into the world. I hope that people read it and enjoy it, but that it also makes you stop and think for a moment, that it inspires you in some way. 
> 
> And so ... without further ado, read and enjoy! 🤗 Oh, and please, do let me know what you think. What are some of the highlights of the chapter for you?

_Riddle Manor I_

_30 June 2017, 18:52_

Harry smoothed down the jacket of his black suit, readjusted the necktie and ran his fingers through his wild raven locks to style them. He changed his glasses for clear contact lenses.

He let out a sigh and looked himself in the mirror.

“What do you think, Alex?” he turned to his youngest child, Alexander Riddle, who was just turning fifteen months next week. “Does daddy look good? Do you think your father will approve?” It wasn’t the first time he was attending a formal gathering as Voldemort’s consort, but it was the first time since he had given birth to their sixth child.

Even after twenty years, he still hated them. He thought he would get used to them as he grew older, but his dislike for anything political had only increased over time. Not only because politics were tedious and full of fake people who acted pleasant in your face, but gossiped about you and insulted you behind your back, but also because they only served to distract Tom from what mattered the most … his family.

Oh, he always made sure to show him how much he loved him and, even after twenty years of marriage, the sex was still incredible – whether rough and fast or tender and slow –, but when it came to their children … Tom had slowly started to drift away from them.

For the past couple of years, whenever there was a choice between attending Lana’s judo matches and a Ministry meeting, he would choose to attend the meeting. Whenever there was an option between attending their daughter Catriona’s solo and ballroom dancing competitions, with Salazar as her dancing partner, and picking up the phone when one of his Death Eaters called, he would pick the latter and leave in the middle of it, text him that he had to go and disappear for the remainder of the performance.

The worst part of it all was the crestfallen expressions of his daughters, who were looking forward to showing off their abilities and hard work in front of their parents.

Harry understood that being the ruler of the wizarding Britain meant a lot to his husband, despite him not being a people person. He also understood that there was a lot of paperwork and many meetings he had to take care of and that his husband was carrying the weight of the entire wizarding world in Britain on his shoulders and that he couldn’t ignore emergencies. However, he couldn’t understand how any of it could be more important than his own family. Especially, when the same people Tom was sacrificing his quality family time for were trying to tear him down at every opportunity. People who refused to accept him as the leader and that rejected his laws, even when they were there for the betterment of wizardkind, or people who thought they could remove him and replace him.

Had things happened differently, maybe he would have been one of those rebels, opposing Voldemort for the sake of opposing, even if his words and laws made sense. However, while he had forsaken fighting in order to have a family with his former enemy and he despised violence, he would be more than glad to see wizardkind fall and burn to ashes, if it meant that he would have his husband back and the children their father.

Tom wasn’t always like that. He still remembered the times when Tom had helped him care for their children, change their diapers, feed them, help them learn how to walk, play with them, accompany them to school. The times when he would have given everything to be there for his kids, had done everything to keep them save, had forsaken everything to find them when rebels would kidnap them, had punished anyone who so much as dared look his consort and children the wrong way.

Even now he didn’t doubt that, had one of their kids been in any kind of danger, he would have dropped whatever he was doing and made sure they were fine. Despite his cold and rough exterior, he cared for his family and loved them deeply, but perhaps … after two decades … he had started taking them for granted. Perhaps he had started to believe that despite the disappointment and the bitter taste his absence left in their mouths, his shortcomings would be overlooked and understood.

Harry had tried to talk to him about it, but whenever he tried, something would interrupt them or Tom would be too exhausted to talk. There was no peace for his husband or them. There was always something going on: phone calls, meetings, riots and protests, kidnappings, assassination attempts against Voldemort and his family, outside threats from foreign Dark Lords with delusions of building and ruling an Empire that spanned the entire world.

Sometimes, he was tempted to take his husband’s phone and throw it from their bedroom window or smash it to bits with a mallet so he would stop being distracted. Sometimes, he was tempted to tie his husband to their bed for a day so he would be there at home with them all instead of being in the office at the Ministry. Sometimes, he wanted to force-feed him and put him to sleep with a spell so he would eat and rest properly … and sometimes, he wanted to kidnap his own husband and whisk him and their family away, preferably to some forsaken cave, away from civilisation, to live like cave dwellers, away from the ruckus and be a family again.

“Dada, pwetty.” The toddler seated on the bed and dressed in a shark onesie gurgled approvingly, clapped and grinned, showing off his pointy shark-like teeth. He grinned back and picked his son up to coo at him. Alexander giggled.

It still surprised him to see how sharp his teeth were, but he supposed he shouldn’t have been, not after each of their children had something peculiar about them.

Delphini, their first-born, was so much like her father it was disturbing. Harry had fainted when, a year ago, he learnt that his eldest daughter had been genetically modifying herself since she was twelve to make herself stronger and look more snake-like by periodically poisoning herself to build poison resistance until her blood had become poison and her saliva had become acid.

Tom had known about it for a while and instead of stopping his daughter from mutilating herself and telling him about it, he let her ruin herself while keeping Harry clueless. Harry had been so furious with him, but more so with himself for not noticing that something was wrong with his child. When he confronted his husband about it, he told him he wanted to stop her, but she used his own past against him and forced him not to involve himself or him in her matters.

When asked why she had done that to herself, she replied with “To eliminate any weaknesses that would make me an easy target for our enemies and to defend our family against anyone who would try to harm us in any way.” _Not to be a burden to you_ went unsaid.

Harry still recalled Delphini’s kidnapping incident with clarity, despite it happening fifteen years ago. He remembered how Tom and he couldn’t prevent it and how desperate he felt when the rebels took her from them in front of their eyes amidst chaos. He was a mess and while Tom kept his composure, he knew that he was just as shaken as he was. Fortunately, they found her in twenty-four hours, but the incident was enough to make him paranoid and fearful for his family’s safety.

Salazar, their eldest son, while the spitting image of his father, was nothing like him. His father was a fear-inducing man, a born leader and ruler, and Salazar had the gentle, impressionable and sensitive soul of an artist, but whose art most described as cursed, for his dark and macabre masterpieces drew lesser human minds insane, forcing him to hide his talent for fear of causing and spreading chaos and insanity among the general populace.

Oh, he was a brilliant student, but mostly because Tom had drilled it into him that he had to perform well at all times, that failure was not allowed. Compared to Delphini, Catriona, Lana and Iphigenia, Tom was infinitely harsher, colder, and stricter with Salazar.

Harry knew it wasn’t out of malice. Tom would never be wilfully cruel to his children; however, sometimes – most of the time – his good intentions didn’t translate well into words or actions. Harry knew that Tom wanted his children to be successful and strong, but his idea of success and strength was limited at best and misguided at worst. He thought that continuing his political legacy and mastering the same types of magic he had mastered was Salazar’s inheritance and duty. Anything else was pointless, useless and a waste of time.

He had told Tom that he was being too harsh, that he was expecting too much from Salazar, that Salazar was neither the ancestor after whom he was named nor a copy of him, but Tom didn’t listen, because he knew that Salazar was capable of greatness. So, he kept pushing and pushing, until Salazar couldn’t take the pressure of his father’s expectations anymore and he broke and attempted to take his own life two months ago.

Harry would never forget the dread and pain that seized his being when McGonagall had contacted him and Tom to inform them of the incident nor the blank and haunted look on his husband’s face, when his own son was tempting death when he himself had done everything in his power to prevent them from ever having to encounter it.

The heart-to-heart conversation – or rather the yelling match – that ensued afterwards in the Hospital Wing between father and son, where all of Salazar’s suppressed feelings and thoughts poured forth, finally snapped something inside Tom. For a moment, Harry thought Tom was going to hit their son. He had him by the collar of his hospital robes and he looked absolutely livid, with his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. However, instead of punching him, he pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, saying, “This is the first and the last time you’ve attempted something of the sort, Salazar, do you hear me?” in his hard, authoritarian voice. “If I ever learn you’ve attempted suicide again, I’m putting you into a restraining jacket and keeping you sedated at all times. Is that clear?”

Their son held onto his father, sobbed into his shoulder and nodded. “Yes, father. I’m sorry, father.”

Tom pressed a kiss to his son’s hair and Harry couldn’t stop his own tears from falling even if he tried. He joined his two treasures and pulled them both into a hug.

Catriona, their second-eldest daughter, was born a squib. When a healer had confirmed their suspicions, Harry thought that his world was crashing down all over again for the umpteenth time. It’s not that he loved his baby any less for not being able to use magic. No. He feared Tom’s reaction to the news. After all, how could two powerful half-blood wizards – one of them being the Dark Lord himself – conceive a squib? Impossible.

At that point, five years into his reign, Voldemort hadn’t really improved the position of squibs in the wizarding world or looked for a way to allow squibs to access their sealed magic. There were other more pressing topics and issues than squibs, so they continued to be regarded and treated like second-class citizens, worse than muggleborns, and reduced to jobs fit for house-elves or if their pedigree was pure enough, they could become brood-mares for pureblood families that struggled with fertility.

Harry feared not only his husband’s reaction, but also the fate that awaited his squib daughter in the wizarding world. She would have to be home-schooled because despite being unable to do magic, due to Tom’s edict early on in his rule about absolute separation of wizards and muggles, she would be unable to go to a regular muggle school.

He didn’t want his daughter to be viewed as a lesser human being because she was a squib, he didn’t want her to be reduced to a human equivalent of a house-elf or a glorified baby-making factory because of her status. He wanted her to be able to choose her own path in life and live her life the way she pleased. Whether in the wizarding or the muggle world, he wanted her to be successful, happy, loved and cherished.

When Tom handled Catriona with utmost care and gentleness and showered her with affection, Harry was ashamed for doubting Tom and his feelings for him and their children. However, the reality of her situation remained bleak and hopeless.

“No child of mine, we’ll be viewed or treated as a lesser being,” said Tom in a low, hard voice, Catriona snuggly cradled against his chest.

“And how do you intend to prevent that from happening, when you’ve done _nothing_ for the squibs in the past five years? Do you seriously believe that just because she’s the daughter of Lord Voldemort, people will receive her with open arms and treat her like royalty?”

“Whosoever disrespects her will face punishment and execution,” he said darkly, his red eyes flashing dangerously.

“Tom,” he sighed tiredly, “you can’t just torture and kill everyone who disrespects us.”

“Yes, I can. I am the Emperor. I am absolute and my word is law.”

“Then there should have been thousands of executions each year, love, because the people that we see at all those parties sneer at us and plot against us the moment we turn our backs on them. Yet, I still see them every damn time I go to one of the vulture gatherings,” he said bitterly.

“Then, I’ll change the law.”

And he did. To think that it took him to have a squib child to spur Tom into action and finally do something to improve the standing of squibs in their society. While squibs and muggleborns wholeheartedly supported the improvements in status and most of them finally warmed up to him as their Emperor, Tom’s new squib law faced harsh opposition, mainly from his pureblood supporters and followers.

The opposition culminated in a failed coup d’état, when the military elite, which consisted mostly of lower-class Death Eaters and Snatchers, stormed the Wizengamot when it was in session and tried to prevent their Emperor and Lord from passing on the Squib Act, dethrone him and execute his family all at once.

Saying that Tom was not pleased would have been an understatement. He hadn’t spared a single one of them. He sentenced them and their families to public torture and execution as a warning to the rest of the populace. It said, “I do not care who you are or who your ancestors were, the moment you threaten me and my family, I will destroy you and everything you hold dear in a blink of an eye.”

With this act, Voldemort gained a variety of new nicknames “Voldemort the Terrible”, “Voldemort the Cruel” and “Voldemort the Bloodthirsty”.

When he openly started performing Black Magic to create his Inferi Army from his fallen enemies and enslave them to bid his will, he earned himself the nickname “Voldemort the Enslaver of Dead”.

Harry had never been more aroused in his life and prouder of his husband … and he let him know how much he appreciated what he had done for them, by seducing him and making love to him all night, worshipping his body, his cock and then impaling himself on it and riding him with abandon.

Then, after seven years, when they had already decided not to have any more children, Lana happened. She was their miracle after the heartbreak that followed when his fourth pregnancy ended prematurely, when the Italian Dark Lord had targeted him and the unborn baby as a means to get to Voldemort, make him vulnerable.

Tom enacted revenge himself by killing the one responsible and destroying most of the key Italian cities, the entire Italian fleet, air force, and army in a matter of hours as a giant, fire-breathing black dragon, crippling the country’s population and economy for at least a decade. Local and international newspapers reported the incident and named it “the Great Italian Massacre”. Some of the newspapers gave Voldemort a new nickname “Voldemort the Destroyer of Civilisations”.

Of course, he created Inferi from the corpses his rage-filled massacre left behind and added them to his ever-growing army, which he used to defend his empire, but never conquer other countries. He was already busy with keeping his own country and family safe and together, he couldn’t be bothered with other countries, even if he had all the means to actually invade and conquer foreign lands.

However, the damage had been done and Harry felt like a piece of him had died with that child. They had just learnt that it would have been a boy. They planned to call him after Harry’s father and godfather. Now, he would never get to see and hold that child and he was adamant not to have another for fear of going through the same pain twice or, Merlin forbid, try to replace James Sirius with another child.

Tom understood and respected Harry’s wishes, even though Harry could see that Tom wanted to have more children. From that point on, they were careful when intimate, using contraceptive spells, avoiding fertile days, but in a moment of longing, nostalgia, and mind-crippling lust, they forwent protection and Harry begged Tom to fill him with his seed, to breed him and Tom complied eagerly.

By the time they were done, Harry felt bloated from all the come in his womb, his thighs were sticky from the sperm that had leaked out and his ass was stretched and loose, but he was warm, full, and content and praying for another child.

His prayer was heard – or rather, Tom hadn’t stopped making love to him until a pregnancy spell showed that Harry was with child. Their vigorous and unprotected lovemaking resulted in a fifth pregnancy and the fourth one that he carried to term.

Lana Riddle was a breath of fresh air, a ball of energy, always restless, always happy, and always loud. Always getting herself into trouble unintentionally, never showing any sign or sense of moderation and danger. She had trouble reading. She looked like a spitting image of Harry. After receiving numerous complaints about her short attention span, her inability to follow instructions, restlessness, the fistfights, spontaneous bursts of accidental magic from her primary school and her persisting reading problem where she would claim that letters were floating on the page and switching places, Lana was looked at by a specialist and diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia.

Almost four years later, they welcomed another daughter, Iphigenia Riddle, who was obsessed with cats. A week ago, there was an incident. She snuck into her eldest sister’s personal research laboratory while Delphini was away visiting her fiancé and just so happened to consume an animal shifting potion, allowing her to transform between her human and animal form, which turned out to be a black kitten, at will. However, even in her human form, she now had extra animal appendages – cat ears, fangs and a tail.

Harry didn’t know who to blame and scold: Delphini for leaving her lab unprotected against her curious younger sibling or Iphigenia for consuming unknown liquids. Luckily, it wasn’t life threatening, but what his eldest daughter told him afterwards made blood freeze in his veins.

“She’s only going to have more animal instincts and behaviours. She is also going to enter heat every month after she reaches sexual maturity and she will want to mate with someone and have kittens of her own.”

As if he would let his child have sex at twelve! He wouldn’t even let her have a boyfriend or experience a kiss until she was eighteen!

“I don’t care how, Delphini,” he said dangerously low, “but you better come up with a potion to counteract the heat, because I refuse to let your sister mate and have children at twelve.”

“Of course,” Delphini’s slitted amber eyes glinted manically, she grinned and it reminded him of Tom.

After four girls and a boy, they finally had another boy, who, as soon as he started teething at six months, had sharp, shark teeth, and who was in the habit of gnawing on wood and rubber, and biting people he didn’t like. Usually, the bites were shallow, but he had already managed to bite off a few fingers and then use the severed appendage as a pacifier.

While horrified – mostly that his son would put something so full of germs into his mouth –, Harry also couldn’t resist the sadistic glee that spread through him whenever his youngest son chomped down on a stranger’s finger who was invading their personal space and who reeked of false kindness. The reactions that followed were usually screams, then curses and insults to his child, calling him the Devil’s Spawn, a Freak, and a Monster.

Some even tried to attack them.

Whenever that happened, Harry would conjure up magical ropes to restrain the attacker, then proceed to conjure up soap bubbles that filled the strangers’ mouths – because nobody insulted him, his children and husband – and, finally, use his telepathic horcrux link to inform his husband of the incident, and have Tom punish and dispose of the aggressor.

He was reluctant to let Alexander witness such violence, because through the years Tom had become more violent and crueller in his punishments – if the fate of Lana’s kidnappers was any indication –, but he didn’t have the heart to take away the squeals of joy that hearing screams of pain brought to Alexander’s lips and the heart-warming giggles that spilt from his mouth as he witnessed his father punish the bad guys.

He supposed that, as long as his son didn’t witness his father destroying entire cities as a dragon or enslaving the dead with Black Magic, it was okay to let him see what happened to people who tried to harm them personally.

…

Hands circled his waist and a hot puff of air hit his earlobe, making him shiver. “I approve of your attire wholeheartedly,” said Tom in a husky voice, tracing his ear with his lips and nuzzling his neck and hair.

Harry giggled, with Alexander still in arms, and sought out his husband’s lips. The toddler let out a sound of awe as he watched them kiss. “Papa and dada kiss,” he said and started making wet kissing sounds.

They separated, grinning softly. Tom ruffled Alex’s messy hair and kissed one of his chubby cheeks. There was a knock coming from downstairs. “That must be Delphini, coming from Ethan’s place.”

Tom grumbled under his breath. “I don’t like that she’s engaged to a carnivorous shapeshifting forest shadow demon. He doesn’t even look human half the time and he’s constantly marring her skin with betrothal marks that look like purple whip marks.”

“You’re the one to talk,” snorted Harry. “You, who keeps marking me with bites and scratches, not to mention with your cum inside and out. If she’s happy with him and if you want to have any grandchildren by her, then let them be. Because thanks to her body modifications, it’s not as if she can be with a regular human and expect to procreate with him when her entire body is a killing machine, her womb included.”

“Still, I would prefer not to imagine her being intimate with skull head, long tongue and tentacles.”

Harry laughed heartily at Tom’s nickname for Ethan. “Come on, love,” he said. “Let’s go greet our daughter and then get this vulture party over with, before I change my mind and stay at home with our children.”

They joined the rest of their children in the sitting room of the Riddle Manor. Salazar, who was in a grey long-sleeved hoodie and sweatpants, was sitting on the sofa, playing _Breath of the Wild_ on Nintendo Switch, and Delphini, who was dressed in a skin-tight snake-print jumpsuit and snake-print high heels, was leaning over the back of the sofa, looking at the screen. Catriona was sitting next to Salazar, listening to music, dressed in green shorts and a grey tank top, a protective necklace around her neck, while Lana and Iphigenia were playing tag around the room in their animal onesies – a _Pikachu_ one for Lana and a _Hello Kitty_ one for Iphigenia.

“Delphi, darling,” began Harry, approaching his twenty-year old daughter and bringing her in for a one-armed hug and pressing a kiss to her cheek, “how was your date with Ethan?”

“Good, he showed me around his territory, which has expanded since I’ve seen him last, the nest where we will live with our young once we mate this autumn, he hunted a deer for me, which we then ate raw, he scent rubbed me, he gave me a new betrothal mark, and we snogged each other senseless.”

She moved her long, black wavy locks aside and showed a new purple band along her neck, just beneath the jawline. Her jumpsuit was covering at least another two dozen similar betrothal marks, running along her arms, legs, chest, stomach and back.

“How wonderful,” he returned with a grin. He could feel Tom grumbling behind him. “I need you, Salazar and Catriona,” he said to his three eldest, “to babysit your younger siblings. Your father and I will try to return before midnight, but one never knows how these unpleasant gatherings can prolong the torture.”

Delphini’s hissing chuckle reached his ears. “Don’t worry, it won’t be the first time we’ve babysat our siblings.”

“I know, but I don’t want any incidents like the one with the animal shifting potion. You keep the lab off-limits. Understood?” he said sternly.

“Understood.”

“Daddy,” called Lana, “what about Uncle Barty? Why can’t he come babysit us like he used to?”

“Because Uncle Barty is busy helping Auntie Hermione with the baby,” Harry explained gently. “Just like how your papa was helping me with you and your siblings.”

“But the baby was born weeks ago,” she protested.

“It takes more than a couple of weeks, Lana, for a baby to go without diapers and breastfeeding.”

Lana made a face, petulantly puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms.

Placing a kiss on each of his children’s cheeks, Harry handed Alexander to Delphini and, with a final wave, left with his husband to be tortured by the camera flashes of impertinent reporters and the fake smiles and giggles of Ministry officials, International diplomats and their significant others.


	2. Where is the Baby? – In another Dimension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Riddle children travel to another dimension.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised here's the second chapter and things are getting interesting and complicated. 😃 All the comments, kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions are much appreciated. 🥰🤗
> 
> Please enjoy! 😊

_Riddle Manor I_

_30 June 2017, 19:05_

Five minutes after their parents left, Delphini placed Alexander next to Salazar on the sofa. “Sal, Cathy,” she said, rising up, “I’m heading upstairs to shower, can I trust you to look after Alex, Lana and Iphi?”

They mumbled affirmatively, their eyes locked on the screens in front of them. With a sigh and a kiss to her youngest brother’s head, she retired upstairs.

“Let’s play hide and seek, Iphi,” said Lana energetically to her younger sister. She turned to Alexander. “Do you want to play too?”

Alexander clapped excitedly, letting out a cooing sound of assent.

“Okay, who’s going to count?”

“Me,” cried Iphigenia eagerly, raising both her arms high into the air. “Me.”

“Okay, count to twenty … slowly. That should give Alex and me enough time to hide.”

“Just don’t go too far,” called Salazar to his younger sisters.

Iphigenia turned, covering her eyes, and began her count to twenty, while Lana awkwardly picked Alexander up and carried him to the main hall, where she set him on the ground. “Okay, Alex,” she whispered to him. “We need to hide. I am going to hide in father’s study so you can’t hide there. You’ll have to find another place.”

With that, she ran to the room next to the living room, leaving her fifteen-month-old brother unguarded. The toddler looked around, wide-eyed and mouth agape, then went on all fours and started crawling in the direction of Delphini’s research lab.

It was locked, but the baby willed the door to open by hissing at it, and then slipped inside. It was dark, save for neon-coloured vials that bathed the room in their gentle glow. The baby, entranced by the pretty colours, wanted to touch them, so he began to climb the nearby shelf with Delphini’s dimension-travel research. So far, she had only managed to brew two doses of the same concoction that allowed for one return trip to another dimension.

It just so happened that in his endeavour, Alexander had knocked one of the two concoctions off the shelf. The glass vial broke; the neon purple liquid seeped into the marble floor, eating at it, until it formed a portal. Alexander the explorer reached for it, lost his balance, and tumbled head first into the portal that immediately closed up after him.

…

“… nineteen … twenty. Ready or not, here I come!” yelled Iphigenia, before transforming into her cat form and scenting the air. She immediately located her sister’s scent and followed it into the main hall, down the corridor to her father’s study squeezed inside then followed the scent under the desk, where her sister was hiding.

She gave a gentle mewl.

“Not fair, Iphi,” complained Lana at being found so quickly. Nevertheless, she crawled from under the desk dusted herself off and said. “Let’s go look for Alex.” Iphigenia gave another mewl and began searching for her brother’s scent. She had no difficulty tracking it down to their eldest sister’s lab.

“Oh-oh,” whispered Lana, remembering her daddy’s words. “We weren’t supposed to be here, daddy said so.”

Still, she reached for the handle and opened it. Then, she reached for the light switch and the bright artificial light blinded them for a moment. They surveyed the lab. “Alex,” called Lana, looking at the floor. “Alex, where are you? You shouldn’t be here.”

Iphigenia’s sharp mewl drew her attention. Her sister was standing near a broken vial and a dry, purple stain on the floor. “What is it?”

Iphigenia transformed to her human form. “Alex’s smell is gone,” she said agitated. “I can’t smell him anywhere in the house.”

“Alex disappeared?” Lana gasped horrified. “Oh no, what are we going to do?”

“Let’s tell Brother Sal and Sister Cathy. They’ll know what to do,” said Iphigenia, grabbing Lana by the hand and sprinting back to the living room.

“Sal, Cathy,” they yelled upon entering. “It’s Alex! He’s gone!”

Salazar paused the game and looked up alarmed and Catriona pulled out her headphones and looked wide-eyed at her sisters. “What did you say?”

“Alex hid in Delphi’s forbidden secret room and now there’s no sign of him,” sniffed Lana.

“I can’t smell him anymore,” cried Iphigenia, her eyes filled with tears.

Salazar and Catriona jumped off the sofa and raced to Delphini’s laboratory, found the broken vial and the purple stain on the floor, but no Alexander. They looked at each other.

“Oh shit,” whispered Salazar.

“We’re fucked,” concluded Catriona. “What do we do?”

“Nothing,” said Salazar, “we wait for Delphini to come, it’s her stuff. She knows what’s in here.”

“I’ll go get her,” Catriona volunteered. “I can’t believe we have lost our brother in less than ten minutes after our parents left him in our care.”

…

“YOU LOST HIM!” thundered Delphini, barefoot, water still dripping off her skin, wrapped in a towel, her scaly skin glistening and her hair wrapped in a turban. Salazar and Catriona had the decency to look ashamed. “In another dimension! I can’t fucking believe it.” She massaged her temples.

“I leave him with you for less than five minutes and you manage to lose him. What were you doing? You were supposed to keep an eye on him not on the fucking game,” Salazar flinched as if struck, “or listen to fucking music.” Catriona mimicked her brother’s reaction.

She let out a sigh. “I’ll get dressed and then we go after him. The only problem is that I only have one one-trip dose left so even if we find Alex as soon as we get to another dimension, we have no means to get back before father and dad get back home.”

“Can’t you brew more?” asked Catriona.

“Of course I can, problem is I have no more ingredients because they are so fucking rare and cost a fortune to source. Not to mention that because of the complexity and intricacies of the preparation and brewing processes it would take me a month to brew, something we can’t really afford, can we?” she said sarcastically and headed to her bedroom.

“And don’t touch anything until I come back,” she called out sternly, when she caught Iphigenia and Lana wander off on their own near some vials from the corner of her eyes.

The two girls immediately yelped, withdrew their hands and went rigid, their spines straight.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_30 June 1995, 19:08_

Lord Voldemort was sitting in his study at Riddle Manor, reading various reports in preparation of the Death Eater meeting in a little under an hour and eating dinner prepared by Barty who had decided to act as his personal assistant and cook, after his cover as Moody had been exposed.

At least his cooking skills were better than Wormtail’s at any rate.

He still hadn’t forgotten how Wormtail’s failure to kill that Hufflepuff had allowed Potter to slip his grasp once again, this time with Dumbledore’s help. No doubt, it was that Hufflepuff that told Dumbledore about the graveyard, and while the old man wasn’t quick enough to prevent him from rising again, he prevented him from killing Potter. Luckily, Barty, still disguised as Moody, accompanied him and between the two managed to corner Albus and Potter but ultimately failed to kill them.

Now, Potter was out of his reach again and while the smear campaign against Dumbledore and Potter was in full swing, it mattered little when the boy was still breathing and living, being a threat to his existence as Dumbledore’s weapon.

A pulse of magic disturbed the wards and a muffled giggle coming from the storage room roused him from his thoughts. Pulling out his yew wand, he stood up and headed towards the source of the disturbance in order to investigate it.

“My Lord,” Barty came panting down the Hall, wand in hand. “Someone has breached the wards.”

“I know,” he hissed impatiently. “I felt the magical disturbance. It came from the storage room.”

“Allow me to go first, my Lord, in case it’s an attacker,” Barty offered and who was he to deny someone to sacrifice themselves for him.

“After you then,” he gestured towards the door.

Barty carefully reached for the handle and before even opening it, they heard a muffled sneeze.

“It wasn’t me,” whispered Barty.

“I know,” he growled impatiently. “It came from inside.”

Barty carefully pushed the door open, his wand lit up. There were boxes, old broken furniture and dust … lots of it … and there, amidst dusty covers was a child with messy black hair, ruby red eyes, dressed in a shark costume and with two rows of sharp, shark teeth.

Barty lowered his wand, closed the door and turned to Voldemort. “There’s a child in the storage room, my Lord.”

Voldemort frowned. “A child?”

Barty nodded. “A very peculiar child.”

“Move aside,” he commanded, opened the door and stumbled upon said child. He stared at the boy … and the boy stared back at him, unflinching. Until his face scrunched up and he sneezed again, lifting up more dust in the process, making him cough.

He stood unmoving, observing the child. There was something familiar about the boy, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Those eyes were like his current ones, he had also seen that hair somewhere and the boy’s magic … it called to him. It felt familiar … similar to his own, but with a different nuance attached to it.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was walking up to the toddler in the shark costume, picking him up and holding him at arm’s length. The boy looked at him, blinking confused and mouth agape.

They left the dark and dusty storage room.

“Do you know this child, my Lord?” asked Barty, surprised to see his Master carry the toddler.

Now that they were face to face, he noted that their eyes were almost identical, their skin tone also. If he didn’t know any better, he would say that the child was his Master’s child. What confused him was the hair. That bird nest was unmistakably Potter’s. As the brat’s teacher, he saw that bird nest every day, so of course he would recognised it, but if the child had his Master’s features and also Potter’s features … did that mean that this child was the child of Master and Potter?

Horror washed over him as the image of a naked Potter writhing under a naked Voldemort, while Voldemort pounded into Potter’s asshole flashed in his mind.

“Not at all,” his Master deadpanned and carried the child into the sitting room. Barty followed him, trying to erase the image of his Master shagging Potter and chase away the nausea that accompanied said image.

‘ _Please, Merlin,_ ’ he thought to himself, ‘ _please,_ _let me be mistaken. Let this child not be the child of my Lord with Potter. Please!_ ’

Any hope he harboured was squashed the moment the toddler laid his eyes upon the portrait of his Master’s muggle father, pointed his chubby hand towards it and called out excitedly, “Papa!”

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_30 June 2017, 19:10_

A couple of minutes later, Delphini was back, wearing another of her skin-tight snake-print jumpsuits and her snake-print high heels. Her long, loose hair was still a bit damp and she used her wand to tie it together. “Alright, here’s the plan,” she reached for her research notebook. “We’ll leave a copy of the recipe to our parents together with a letter explaining what happened, and then we open the portal and go after Alex.”

“We’ll all go?” asked Salazar incredulously. “We can’t risk Lana and Iphi like that.”

“It’s not like we can leave them here either for hours. Unguarded,” she snapped back at him. “Plus, we don’t know where he landed nor who or what encountered him. He could be in danger.”

“You’re the one with the ability to transform into a fire-breathing dragon like father,” said Salazar, “plus you’re the one with the knack for elemental magic, why don’t you go alone? Why do you even need us? We’ll only be in your way.”

“It’s true that I can control the elements and transform into a dragon and I will not hesitate to change forms should the situation call for it, however, I would feel better with you there. You know, one for all and all for one. Besides,” she added shrewdly, “this could be a lesson to our father dearest. Maybe if we disappear, he will finally see what matters most in life.”

All of them shared a look.

“I want papa to play with us,” sniffed Iphigenia, her cat ears flattened in sadness against her head.

“We don’t even eat as a family anymore because he’s always busy,” said Salazar.

“I want him to come and stay at our matches and performances. There’s no point in winning if he’s not there to witness it,” sighed Catriona.

“I want papa to stop being the Emperor,” said Lana, “because I don’t want him to waste time and energy on people who blame him for everything that is wrong with the wizards in Britain.”

Delphini nodded in agreement. “I feel awful causing our dad and my dear Ethan distress, but I think they’ll understand once we reunite,” she added.

“So … if we’re trying to teach father a lesson, do we leave behind the recipe and the letter or do we just go and let them believe we were kidnapped?” wondered Salazar.

“You raise a good point, Sal,” Delphini mused, stroking her chin. “I say we leave without a note. I’ll make a copy of the recipe to see if we can brew it and leave the original here for them to find.”

“What if we don’t manage to find the ingredients?” wondered Catriona. “You said that they are rare and expensive.”

“We’ll manage,” she assured her, determination in her eyes, “even if I have to resort to crime to get my hands on them.” She turned to Salazar. “Go get your wand.”

Salazar immediately left to fetch it.

“And you, Catriona, have you thought about my proposal? Have you made a decision?”

Catriona wrung her hands nervously. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Ethan assured me it will be a symbiotic relationship.”

“I don’t think dad would like it,” she continued to fidget. “He was furious when he found out about you.”

“He’ll understand. Besides, it will give you the power to defend yourself against magical and non-magical attacks even as a squib. You’ll be untouchable.”

Catriona bit her lower lip. Salazar returned with his wand tucked in his sweatpants, his Nintendo Switch and Catriona’s phone.

“We don’t have time for dilly-dallying, Catriona. Alex could be in danger. You have to make a decision now,” Delphini pressed her. “Will you bond with the symbiont or not?”

“Fine. I’ll bond with the symbiont,” she succumbed to the pressure; her eyes squeezed shut.

Delphini grinned like a Cheshire cat and walked to the heavy chest, sitting in the corner of her lab. “Come closer, Cathy,” she beckoned her gently and her sister obeyed, trembling all over. She unlocked the dozen padlocks sealing it with a wave of her hand.

Catriona gulped as the heavy lid opened and Delphini took out a jar made of unbreakable glass. Inside it, a black, tar-like blob was constantly swirling and changing shapes.

“I want you to reach inside the jar as soon as I remove the lid,” Delphini instructed. “And don’t panic too much when it latches onto you and starts bonding with you.”

Catriona nodded, apprehension clearly written on her face. Delphini twisted the lid and Catriona extended a shaky arm towards the jar. Then, she reached inside it. The blob’s black tendrils extended towards her tentatively, licking her skin as if trying to determine the compatibility.

She held her breath, her heart pounding like crazy in her chest. A yelp of surprise escaped her the moment she felt the symbiont latch onto her skin. It travelled up her arm, her neck, her face, until it forced its way inside her mouth.

She gagged, choked and started coughing.

“It will be over soon.” Delphini’s distant voice soothed.

Catriona’s eyes watered as she fell on her knees, gasping. Her vision was blurry, with black spots dancing in front of her eyes. Nausea built in her stomach.

‘ _Finally_ ,’ a deep, demonic voice sighed contentedly inside her head. ‘ _I finally have a host willing to house me. It has been so long. Too long. So thirsty. So hungry. I need blood … flesh. I need to eat._ ’

She started drooling; her stomach growled furiously, her teeth and nails turned long, sharp and pointy, her tongue became longer, her eyes turned completely blank, and her body was covered in the same black, tar-like substance as the symbiont, making her look bigger and more muscular.

“I might have forgotten to mention that it was a carnivorous symbiont with preference for human flesh,” added Delphini, scratching her nape.

“Make … it … stop. Please.” Catriona’s voice came out rough, monster-like. Then, the black substance consumed her entire body and a lipless and noseless grotesque creature stood in her stead, towering over them.

Lana and Iphigenia squealed and hid behind Salazar.

“Mr Symbiont,” began Delphini diplomatically.

“Kageshi,” the demonic voice spoke.

“Mr Kageshi, you’ll get to eat as soon as we make it to our destination. Could you possibly wait for another five minutes?”

The symbiont Kageshi grumbled, displeased. “Fine, but only five. If you don’t get me somebody to eat by then, I’ll eat the lot of you instead.”

Salazar, Lana and Iphigenia gulped.

“There’s no time to lose,” announced Delphini. “Let’s go.” She reached for the vial with the dimension-travel concoction and instructed them to form a circle. “We’ll only have a short window, so as soon as the portal forms, jump into it on my mark. Understood?”

Her siblings nodded.

She uncorked the vial and poured the liquid onto the same spot that the other one broke and spilt. That should transport them to the same place as Alex.

The portal slowly opened and spread. They held hands. Once it reached its full circumference, she yelled. “Now!” and they all jumped into the portal.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_30 June 1995, 19:13_

“Papa!” repeated the boy.

Voldemort looked at his father’s portrait, hanging above the fireplace between the portraits of his paternal grandparents.

“This is your father?” he asked the toddler.

“Papa! Papa!”

For some reason, his first thought was that his father had another child and that this toddler with shark teeth was his brother. However, that line of thought was faulty. Even if the child time-travelled from the past, it was highly unlikely for his father to have conceived another magical child, with ruby red eyes and shark teeth no less, when magic was the reason he left his mother and him in the first place.

Therefore, the only other explanation was that _he_ was the one who had conceived this child. That this child was his son. After all, he was the spitting image of his father in his youth and if his counterpart from the timeline that this boy had come looked like his father again, it made sense for the boy to look at his biological father and mistake him for his own biological father.

While this explanation certainly made more sense in his mind, there was another problem to consider. He had never engaged in activities of sexual nature, therefore, unless this child had been conceived artificially through insemination or magical means, he very much doubted that his counterpart would have resorted to sex to procreate. After all, he despised the mere thought of being intimate with someone.

Another thing that boggled his mind was the fact that any version of himself would ever want to procreate and have heirs, when his immortality eliminated the need to have children to pass on the legacy, because he would keep Slytherin’s legacy alive on his own.

Even if some version of him had had a sudden change of heart and decided that he wanted to have children and that he either decided to hire someone to carry the babe to term or, Merlin forbid, actually found someone worthy of being his consort and conceived a babe through sex, he wondered who he considered to be worthy of gracing his bed, co-habiting with him and even carrying his child, when there was nobody he found attractive and appealing.

Another burst of magic resonated through the manor and a loud thud that shook the entire manor came from the storage room.

Voldemort instinctively brought the shark-teethed toddler towards his chest and covered his head in a protective gesture. Barty was on alert and with his wand in hand, stepping before him and the child to safeguard them.

Both their eyes trained on the entrance to the sitting room. Waiting.

They heard voices coming from the hall.

…

“Arresto Momentum!” called out Delphini, breaking her fall and the fall of her siblings … except Kageshi’s fall, which led to a small earthquake as the symbiont taking control of Catriona’s body landed on his limbs, leaving cracks and indents in the marble beneath them.

Kageshi sniffed the stale, dusty air around them. “Hm … I smell food,” it grumbled, drooling and licking its lipless mouth. “Four people.”

“Kageshi,” Delphini warned, “five minutes are still not up. Refrain from attacking and eating on sight until we’ve assessed the situation.” She turned to Iphigenia. “Iphi, work your magic. Find Alex with your nose.”

The girl nodded vigorously and instantly transformed into her animal form and began scenting the air. Discerning her brother’s scent, from two other familiar scents, she followed it outside, into the entrance hall.

“Uh, guys,” began Salazar softly, after taking in his surroundings, “doesn’t this hall look familiar?”

“It’s our hall!” exclaimed Lana excitedly. “We’re home!”

“Sh!” Delphini pressed her index to her lips sternly. “We don’t want to draw attention.”

“Kind of pointless when Kageshi already announced our presence with his landing,” deadpanned Salazar.

Iphigenia mewled gently and scratched at the door that in their dimension led to the sitting room. “Alex is through that door,” she said, transforming back into her human form and pointing at the door. She frowned, “But something’s weird.”

“What do you mean weird?” asked Delphini.

“I can smell papa and uncle Barty too.”

…

The voices were now right outside the living room and while muffled, they could hear their conversation clearly.

The moment a small girl’s voice said, “I can smell papa and uncle Barty too,” Voldemort and Barty exchanged flabbergasted looks.

“Uncle Barty!” called another girly voice enthusiastically through the door.

“Lana,” spoke an older female sternly. “The man on the other side of this door is not our Uncle Barty and papa is also not our papa. Our papa and Uncle Barty are back at home. Do you understand?”

What was happening? Who was the papa they were talking about? And who would consider Barty an uncle?

“Yes,” said the girl in a disappointed sigh.

“Good, and behave. I know it’s difficult for you to control your impulses due to your ADHD, but please, let me do the talking and stay behind Salazar or me. Understood?”

Salazar? That’s a name only he would use to name a son of his. The cold grip of horror gripped Voldemort’s being as the possibility of more children looking like him standing behind the sitting room door occurred to him.

There was a brief pause, before the same mature female voice spoke again. “Salazar, keep Lana and Iphi close to you,” she instructed. “Kageshi, you keep Catriona safe.”

“You should worry about yourselves,” a deep, demonic voice resonated. “The five minutes you promised are almost over and I still see no food … besides yourselves and whoever lies beyond the door.”

Barty’s grip on his wand tightened and he himself reached for his yew wand and pointed it at the door.

“We’ll arrange something,” the female promised.

“I’m getting tired of waiting.”

“Okay, here goes,” she sighed. There was a knock and the door opened to reveal four people and a tall, muscular, tar-black monster with sharp and pointy teeth, no lips and nose.

Barty audibly gulped at the sight of the monster and visibly paled.

Voldemort stared transfixed at the features of the other four people. The eldest female: her aura and posture were regal and imposing … much like his own. Not to mention her resemblance to a snake and her affinity for snake clothing and footwear. The teenage boy next to her looked like he had in his youth. Then, the true shock came; the second youngest girl looked exactly like Potter. A female Harry Potter: vivid green eyes and messy black hair … like the toddler’s in his arms. And finally, the youngest girl, with cat ears and tail who had one green and one ruby eye … Potter and him.

“Good evening,” the eldest’s smooth voice began, her slitted, amber eyes focussed on the toddler in his arms, who turned and began squealing for his sister. “We apologise for the intrusion, but we have only come to collect our wayward brother.”

Of course, the child was their brother. How could he not be?

“Brother?” he asked anyway. “And who are you exactly?”

“I don’t think it’s relevant, but for the sake of good manners, this is Salazar Riddle.” She motioned to the teenage boy, who bowed his head in greeting.

 _Riddle_. They even had his muggle father’s surname. These children were his children … or rather his counterpart’s children. What was his counterpart thinking!? Keeping his muggle surname and passing it onto his offspring. Unbelievable. Unforgivable. If he ever had children (which was highly unlikely, much less with Harry Potter), he would never sully their names by giving them the surname Riddle. Not that Gaunt was any better, but carrying Slytherin’s surname would make the most sense as the Heir of Slytherin and now, these children were all Descendants and Heirs of Slytherin as well.

The young woman continued. “Lana Riddle.” She gestured to the restless girl, craning her neck from behind Salazar, intently staring at Barty and looking as if she was in a lot of pain, dying to open her mouth and say whatever was on her mind.

“Iphigenia Riddle.”

“Hi,” the cat-eared and tailed girl waved shyly in their direction.

“This is Catriona Riddle, currently possessed by a carnivorous symbiont going by the name of Kageshi,” she introduced the demonic creature towering over them.

“Snacks,” it drawled and drooled. “Lungs, hearts, brains, liver, kidneys, pancreas, intestines. So many delicious snacks in one place.”

“He’s really hungry, so … if you have a human sacrifice to spare on hand, it would be much appreciated,” she added matter-of-factly.

“We’ll arrange something _after_ the introductions,” he said coolly. He couldn’t let anyone show just how shaken he was.

“Fair enough,” she nodded. “You have already met Alexander Riddle and I’m Delphini Riddle. As you can see, we are all related.”

“Are there any more of you?”

“No, there’s just the six of us.”

 _Just_ six? Even six was more than enough. Too many! Why would any Voldemort want to have a single child much less _six_?

“For now at least,” added Delphini, and his eyes widened in bewilderment. “I mean, our parents might decide to have more in the near future. They do seem to be rather fond of producing children, but right now, there are six of us. I am the eldest, then Salazar, Catriona, Lana, Iphigenia and Alexander.”

“And who are your parents?” he asked, although he already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it nonetheless.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle also known as Lord Voldemort is our father and Harry James Riddle née Potter is our bearer, and before you ask, no, we’re not from your future, we’re from a future of a different dimension, so while you share our father’s name, appearance and blood, you are _not_ , in fact, our father. Our father is currently attending a torture session with our dad.”

A thud next to him roused him out of his shock. When he looked to where Barty was standing a moment ago, he found him lying on the floor, unconscious. Apparently, the news of another him and another Potter having sex and producing children left and right had been too much for his poor nerves.

Had he been a lesser man, he would have fainted too. Instead, he felt relieved at the notion that technically these weren’t _his_ children and that at least it wasn’t _he_ – or rather his counterpart –, who had to go through the pregnancy.

It would have been the ultimate humiliation to learn that he was bottoming for Potter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought of the chapter. 😄


	3. The Riddle Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort agrees to house his counterpart's children and learns some information about Harry, while his counterpart and the other Harry discover that their children are missing.

Seeing Barty unconscious made Lana gasp “Uncle Barty!” and run up to him, only for her eldest sister to bind her body, taking control over it and forcing her to return to her side.

Was it some kind of Imperius? It had to be. There was no other spell capable of manipulating somebody’s will, but there was no characteristic empty and glassy look in Lana’s eyes. A variation, perhaps? What was even more impressive was that she didn’t even use her wand, which she used as a hair accessory instead.

“Lana,” she began menacingly. “What did I say not even five minutes ago?”

“To behave?” she replied tentatively.

“Aha,” she said sternly, her arms crossed, “and what else?”

The girl fidgeted with her hands. “To stay behind Salazar or you and let you do the talking?”

“Exactly, and that means no outbursts of any kind or running off on your own.”

“But,” sputtered Lana in protest, “Uncle Barty is unconscious. He needs help.”

“I’m sure our father’s counterpart will take care of him, you need not concern yourself with the man. He’s a stranger.”

Lana puffed her cheeks in anger. “Just because he’s not our Uncle Barty doesn’t mean he’s a stranger. He’s still Uncle Barty. Uncle Barty is Uncle Barty and that’s it!”

“Don’t raise your voice at me, Lana,” spoke Delphini assertively.

Before things could get anymore heated between the two, Voldemort cast a Rennervate at Barty, making him gasp and look around like a lost animal. Lana called out to him, ran past her eldest sister, and tackled Barty into a ferocious hug, knocking all air out of the man’s lungs.

Delphini heaved a defeated sigh, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Uncle Barty, it’s so good to see you, even if you look weird without your gorgeous goatee, man bun, pirate earring, tattoos and battle scars.” The girl’s cheerful bluntness took Barty aback, just as much as the image of him she described did. “Say, are you and Auntie Hermione together already? Do you already have any kids? Our Uncle Barty and Auntie Hermione are already on their ninth child. Papa was really cross with you … again,” she continued to ramble much to Barty’s dismay at finding out that a version of him was married to a Mudblood, Hermione Granger no less, and apparently having nine children with her.

“And why is that?” Voldemort chimed in, intrigued by the curious narrative.

Lana looked at him. “Because Uncle Barty keeps putting your personal assistant on maternity leave, and you constantly have to hire shitty replacements. You even threatened to castrate him so they wouldn’t have more kids or have both Uncle Barty and Auntie Hermione undergo a procedure to make them infertile,” she said matter-of-factly.

Voldemort raised an eyebrow, trying to envision the roguish description of Barty from her dimension and the circumstances that lead to him marrying Harry’s Mudblood friend and the other Voldemort hiring her as his personal assistant, but failing to come up with a plausible explanation. Alexander was still securely nestled in his arms.

Barty, on the other hand, looked pale and absolutely horrified by the prospect of fatherhood, marriage to Mudblood Granger and having his Lord threaten his manhood.

“Fifteen seconds until five minutes are up and for me to feast on all of you,” spoke the demonic creature that was possessing his second eldest daughter. “Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen …”

He turned to Barty. “Barty, go get Wormtail.”

Barty immediately picked himself up. “Yes, my Lord,” he said and left the room.

“I hope a nice fat rat-man will do … for now,” he addressed the dark creature.

He stopped counting. “It depends on how juicy he is and how many bites I can get out of him,” said the monster.

“He’s quite juicy, I would say. You could definitely get two, maybe three big bites out of him, depending on your eating habits.”

“Long ago, when I had a host, I used to chomp off the head first, then swallow the rest of the body in one go, leaving no trace whatsoever.”

“Fear not then,” assured Voldemort, “you’ll be able to do just that.”

Barty returned with a petrified Pettigrew. The demon licked his teeth and then, in a flash, he was grabbing Pettigrew, chomping off his head and swallowing his body in one go, until there was nothing left.

The demon burped, but complained of being hungry still, reinforced by the rumbling of his stomach.

“I’m afraid you’ve exhausted my human resources, and you are not allowed to touch me, Barty or any of the children. Would raw animal meat suffice in the meantime?” said Voldemort diplomatically. Because if his counterpart shared his personality, then he was very possessive of the things he held dear, quick to seek vengeance when wronged and punish those who hurt him and his loved ones. He knew that he would have torn apart the world itself to make those responsible pay, therefore, until the children reunited with their parents, he would keep them safe.

He was not going to risk the wrath of his counterpart.

The demon grumbled. “In a pinch, animal flesh can also satisfy my hunger, but there’s nothing quite like human blood and flesh.”

“Let’s make a deal then, whenever I’ll have a juicy human waste for you to gobble down, you’ll be allowed to consume it. How does that sound?”

“Agreed, human.”

With that, the demon receded back into his host and in his place was a teenage girl, no older than fifteen, wearing green shorts and a grey sleeveless shirt, looking horror-stricken. She was the only one with auburn hair and his father’s chocolate brown eyes.

“I just ate a human being,” she whispered, agitated, her eyes blown wide, oblivious to the people around her. “I killed someone. I’m a murderer.”

“Cathy.” Delphini approached her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Catriona flinched violently. “Don’t touch me!” she snarled at her. “I should never have listened to you.” Her hands went to her hair to twist her fists in them. “I should never have let you convince me and agree to this madness. You should have told me this would happen!”

Her breathing was all over the place; her eyes still held that demonic glint in them, her teeth looked like fangs.

Delphini was unfazed by her sister’s emotional outburst. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything, but it was the only way to get you to agree to the bonding.”

“I’m a monster because of it now!” she sobbed. “You made me a monster.”

“But at least you’re going to be safe!” yelled Delphini, her own amber eyes glinting with emotion, plunging the entire room into deathly silence. Catriona looked stunned. “What is one human life once in a while, when I get to keep my squib sister safe from all sorts of danger?”

A squib? Catriona Riddle, one of his children … was a squib?

Catriona broke into another wave of sobs and tears, and fell to her knees, her arms wrapped protectively around herself. Delphini was immediately next to her, pulling her shaking sister into an embrace.

“You’re my baby sister, Cathy,” she said softly, her voice hoarse as if she was trying to contain her tears. “I will always put your well-being above any stranger’s life without second thoughts.”

Catriona sobbed harder and clung to her sister. Lana and Iphigenia approached the two and joined the hug as well. “We love you too, Cathy.”

Salazar joined them too, draping over his sisters like a protective blanket. The toddler in his arms started fussing and bumbling, trying to join his siblings. He settled him on the ground – because he was reluctant to approach – and observed the toddler crawl to his siblings on all fours, where he happily announced his presence.

Delphini instantly picked him up and covered his cheeks in loud kisses. “You too, Alex.”

His chest tightened at the picture the six children huddled on the floor formed before him. He felt like an intruder, an outsider, witnessing such an intimate and familial scene, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes from it, entranced by the sense of homeliness they radiated.

His children. His counterpart’s children with Potter’s counterpart.

Catriona’s sobs began to subside, yet the six Riddle children stayed together. Until someone’s stomach rumbled again.

“That wasn’t me,” said Catriona.

“It’s me,” said Delphini.

“Didn’t you eat an entire raw deer just before coming here?” asked Salazar.

Raw deer? What were his children?

“I did, but you know how my body is,” protested Delphini. “My saliva digests everything before it reaches my stomach and I’m always hungry because of that.”

“Honestly, it’s like you have a black hole instead of a stomach,” remarked Salazar and Delphini laughed heartily at the comment.

“True.” She turned to him. “Could I bother you for some dinner?” she asked politely. “We haven’t really had dinner before coming here. I was planning on making some pasta with tomato sauce, but … all our dinner plans went down the drain when Alex dimension-travelled by accident.”

“Can’t you simply return home the same way you came here and have dinner at your place?”

“We could. Unfortunately, we ran out of our means of transport.”

“What do you need to go back home?”

Delphini rose to her feet, with Alexander in arms and produced a folded sheet of paper. He took it and read the list of ingredients. “What’s this?”

“My recipe for dimension portals,” she declared casually. “I need everything on that list, then spend a month prepping and brewing the concoction before we can use it to return back home.”

He stared at her. “You’re stuck here … for at least a month?”

“Yes.”

“These ingredients aren’t common or easy to come by. What were you planning to do to get them if your brother had ended somewhere else?”

She shrugged. “I would have thought of something, even if I had to resort to illegal action. Luckily, you can help us gather what we need, while also giving us shelter,” she announced with a sharp smile.

“You intend to stay here?” he asked incredulously.

“Why, yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Where else would you have us go? This is our home, after all, even if in a different dimension.” A shrewd and calculating look took hold of her amber eyes. “Besides, you wouldn’t turn away the children of your own counterpart and leave them homeless with no way to return, would you?”

He was speechless, gobsmacked, being played like a fiddle by his own daughter. An odd sense of pride inflated his chest. That cunning look and attitude were his, all right. There was no doubt that Delphini was his daughter … or rather his counterpart’s daughter and he couldn’t even be mad about his horde of children invading his house … with less than an hour away from his Death Eater meeting.

“Barty,” he called to his subordinate, his ruby gaze locked with the amber one of his eldest offspring, “tell your house elf to prepare something for supper for six people and six rooms.”

“Five,” corrected Delphini, “Alex will be sleeping with me.”

“You heard the girl, Barty. Five rooms, six plates for dinner.”

“At once, my Lord.”

Delphini smiled broadly, a maniacal glint in her eyes. “Our parents will be forever grateful with you.”

…

_Ministry of Magic I_

_30 June 2017, 19:20_

While the music was nice to listen to and the Ministry Atrium looked gorgeous with all the decorations and food, it couldn’t make Harry enjoy the ball. In fact, he felt miserable. Usually, he lasted an hour or two, but tonight, he felt like dying and it wasn’t even half an hour since they arrived.

He wanted to be with his children. He wanted a quiet evening with his family.

He could feel Tom trying to soothe his anxiousness through their link, even when he was currently busy talking to a Russian diplomat some tables away. Usually, it worked, but tonight, it didn’t. He felt restless, with a weirdly constricting feeling in his chest. As if his instincts were trying to tell him that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

A waiter offered him some alcoholic beverage, but he refused. While he wasn’t breastfeeding anymore, he stayed away from alcohol on principal. The only time he ever drank was a glass of champagne for New Year’s Eve with his husband and even then, it felt too much.

He rubbed his chest to ease the ache lodged inside it. His stomach churned, he felt light-headed. Tom, sensing his distressed state, quickly wrapped up his conversation and joined him.

“What has you so upset, love?” he inquired.

“I want to go back home, Tom.”

“But we’ve just arrived.”

“I don’t care,” he said, agitated. “I need to go back to check on our kids.”

Tom took his cold and fidgeting hands in his and started pulling him towards the dance floor. “What are you doing?” he inquired, confused.

“I’m trying to dance with my husband,” he replied.

Harry let his husband place his left hand on his lower back, take his left in his right, and gently sweep him into a gentle sway on the dancefloor. “I know this is your first time being away from Alexander since he was born, but he has his siblings to look after him.”

“It’s not just separation anxiety,” he protested. “And I know Delphini, Salazar and Catriona are comfortable with changing diapers and preparing Alex’s bottle, but this is different. It’s like my instincts are telling me something isn’t right with the kids; that something happened to them.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “Like a premonition?”

Harry nodded. “Please, Tom,” he pleaded in a desperate whisper, fighting his urge to cry. “Only five minutes to see that everything is fine and then we can come back here and stay until the end; otherwise I’m going to drive myself crazy with worry.”

He bit into his lip to stop himself from whimpering and squeezed his eyes shut to contain the tears that have formed in them. Tom pressed him against him, his lips to his temple, hissing soothingly. “If it brings you peace, we’ll go back home.”

A shaky breath escaped him and he nodded, not trusting his voice.

“Just let me find Malfoy and then we’ll go.”

He nodded again.

Two minutes later, Tom was next to him again. His hands were around him, giving him comfort and support as they walked towards the exit and towards the apparition point.

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_30 June 2017, 19:35_

As soon as they apparated in front of the manor, Harry hurried inside, Tom just behind him. He burst into the sitting room, but found nobody. “Delphi!” he called down the hall, but nobody answered him.

“Salazar! Catriona!” called Tom in his harsh voice. Nothing but silence answered.

“Take the ground floor, I’ll go check upstairs,” said Harry and went up the stairs, jumping two at a time.

He checked their rooms, the master bedroom, all the bathrooms and nothing. The floor was empty. A growing sense of panic took hold of him. He raced downstairs.

“Tom!” he called, on the verge of a panic attack. “Please, tell me you’ve found them, because they aren’t in their rooms.”

Tom’s dark and morose expression told him everything. When he confirmed his suspicions with a shake of his head, a broken sob escaped him as he lost all strength in his legs. Before he hit the ground, Tom caught him and pulled him into a fierce embrace.

“This can’t be happening, Tom,” he sobbed, tears staining his cheeks, his eyes bloodshot red. “W-Where are our b-babies? I want our babies.” Violent shivers and hiccoughs shook his body, as he wept as if someone had just cut open his chest, took out his still beating heart, crushed it, and left him hollow.

Tom’s grip tightened around his husband as he buried his face into Harry’s hair. “I don’t know what happened, love,” he spoke gently, “but there are no signs of struggle, nothing was overturned, broken or out of place, there’s no blood either, so I don’t think it’s a kidnapping.”

That didn’t seem to calm down Harry.

“So what if it isn’t a kidnapping!” he yelled brokenly. “The f-fact remains that our c-children are not where they s-should be!” After his outburst was over, he went back to weeping loudly, his face buried in his husband’s chest, with snot running down his nose.

“We’ll find out what happened and get them back,” he spoke calmly. “But first, I need you calm and collected. Can you do that for me?”

Harry snorted. “That’s easy for you to say,” he reproached him. “When you aren’t the one feeling like dying.”

Harry regretted the words the moment they left his mouth, but it was too late to take them back.

Tom’s face settled into a hard and blank expression. “I may not have been the one who gave birth to them, but that doesn’t mean I’m not affected by their disappearance, that it doesn’t crush my insides knowing they could be in danger. However, losing my cool and succumbing to despair won’t solve things any easier or faster. Besides,” he stroked his cheek gently, wiping away the tears, “how am I supposed to be your rock if I, too, were a sobbing mess like you are right now?”

Another wave of tears poured down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said pitifully, “I don’t know why I said what I said. It just came out. I know that you adore our kids as much as I do, but you have to understand that …” his voice broke and his throat constricted. Tom cradled him closer. “This feels just like that time, when we lost James Sirius. When the healer told me that I lost him, before I could even hold him.”

Tom felt his own throat constrict and tears prickle his eyes. “I know, Harry,” he whispered. “I know.”

They didn’t say anything anymore, because no words could describe the pain of a parent that has lost their child. Therefore, he let Harry cry himself to unconsciousness in the middle of their entrance hall, while he held him tightly in his arms, fighting back his own tears.

When the sobs had stopped and Harry had fallen asleep, he carried him to their master bedroom, tucked him in, before shutting himself up in his study, cradling a photograph of his family to his chest and letting go of his control over the emotions swirling inside him.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_30 June 1995, 19:45_

“Thank you for the meal!” yelled Lana enthusiastically, before picking up her fork and digging into the plate filled with tomato pasta.

Her siblings followed her example, but were nowhere nearly as loud as she was. Then, something caught Voldemort’s eye. His eldest, Delphini, was eating with her hands. “Why on earth are you eating like a savage?” he said, horrified.

She looked at him, swallowing down her food. “Because otherwise, my saliva will melt the fork,” she said nonchalantly.

“I don’t think I follow.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Long story short; I’ve been genetically modifying myself since I was twelve. The modifications I subjected myself to have left me with venom for blood and acid for saliva. I have turned myself quite literally into a killing machine.”

“And your parents know about this?” he asked, perplexed.

“They do, but they found out when the damage had been done. My father tried to stop me, when he caught me poisoning myself at sixteen, but I quickly shut him up, when I told him: ‘ _Father, I value and respect you and I would heed your advice without questioning on any other subject but this one. Seriously, it’s the height of hypocrisy on your part to come and lecture me on body modification, when you yourself have torn your own soul apart seven times in pursuit of immortality and have put your body through so many dark rituals that you ended up looking like a snake as well. So, stay out of my business, keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything to dad, if you know what’s good for you._ ’”

Voldemort gaped at Delphini. He was taken aback by her audacity to talk like that to her father, but the part that etched itself into his mind was the part about the horcruxes. “Seven?” As far as he knew, he only had six. Unless his counterpart went ahead and created a seventh one.

“Yeah,” she swallowed another handful of pasta. “Your personal diary, the Gaunt Ring, the Slytherin Locket, the Hufflepuff Cup, the Ravenclaw Diadem, Nagini, and our bearer.”

What? What did she just say? He must have misheard her. “Excuse me?”

She looked pointedly at him. “I _said_ that our _dad_ , the one who gave birth to us, is our father’s horcrux.”

“Impossible,” he breathed, alarmed. It wasn’t possible.

“Well from where we come, it’s more than possible. Not that father intended for our dad to be his horcrux, it just kind of happened.”

“Horcruxes don’t just happen,” he said indignantly.

She shrugged. “Magic works in mysterious ways,” she said nonchalantly. “If this dimension is similar to our dimension, then, who knows, maybe Harry Potter from this dimension is also your horcrux.”

Voldemort was frozen to his seat, unable to utter a single sound.

“What’s a horcrux?” Lana’s curious voice rang through the dining room. Catriona and Salazar halted and exchanged a look of trepidation.

“It’s an object, an animal or a person that holds a piece of someone’s soul,” replied Delphini matter-of-factly, much to Salazar and Catriona’s dismay.

Lana’s face filled with child-like awe. “So … daddy has a piece of papa’s soul inside him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so romantic,” she squealed excitedly.

None of her elder siblings corrected her.


	4. Interruptions & Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Riddle children keep interrupting Voldemort's meeting with the Death Eaters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone! Happy holidays in general! 🥰🤗
> 
> Enjoye this gift, but above all, ready yourselves for laughter and tears. 😎

_Riddle Manor II_

_30 June 1995, 19:55_

Still shaken from the revelations during supper and the possibility of this dimension’s Harry Potter being his horcrux, Voldemort was having a hard time concentrating. He was pacing in front of the fireplace and the Riddle children, seated on the sofa, unsure of what to do.

“All right,” he began, facing his brood, “in a few minutes, I have a very important meeting, so I would request that you do not interrupt or reveal yourselves to any of my followers.”

“Don’t worry,” grinned Delphini. “You won’t even know we’re here.”

“We promise to be good, papa,” said Lana solemnly.

His eyes narrowed. “Why do I have a feeling it won’t be like that?”

Delphini smiled like a madwoman.

…

With the children out of sight on the first floor, Voldemort received his followers in the dining room.

“Welcome,” he began, in a low, hissing tone, “I have gathered you here tonight to discuss a few important things. First thing on the agenda is Harry Potter. An important detail was brought to my attention tonight by an anonymous source that the boy could be more than he appears to be. I would like to confirm those suspicions, but for that, I need the boy in my presence. I will handsomely reward anyone who is able to bring Potter to me, unharmed, and in the shortest time frame possible.”

His followers exchanged curious looks, but he could already see a few of them, mainly Malfoy, scheming to gain his favour.

“Again, I need the boy unharmed,” he repeated sternly.

“Yes, my Lord,” they echoed.

“Good. Moving onto our second point: our imprisoned brothers and sisters.”

The muffled sound of high heels resonated through the walls. The look of shock on his followers’ faces and superficial legilimency told Voldemort that they thought he had a female lover inside the manor.

Bracing himself for the inevitable, Voldemort closed his eyes in resignation, and waited.

The sound of heels grew louder, until the door to the dining room burst open and in walked Delphini with Alexander in her arms.

Great, now the idiots thought Delphini was his lover and Alexander their child.

“Father,” began Delphini, ignoring his Death Eaters. Their scandalised mental shout ‘ _FATHER_ ’ rang inside his head, giving him a headache. “I need a diaper, Alexander just pooped himself.” The toddler wasn’t crying, but he seemed far more restless and uncomfortable than before.

He looked blankly at his daughter. “Delphini, do I look like I have diapers on hand?”

“No.”

“Then why are you asking me for diapers, when you know I haven’t got any.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, just ask Barty’s elf to help you or something.”

“Fine,” she deadpanned, turned and was about to leave, when she hesitated and surveyed the faces in the room. “It’s so odd to see faces that have been dead for over a decade,” she said pensively and then left.

Deathly silence settled over them.

“As I was saying,” Voldemort continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “One of the plans this year is to free our imprisoned fellow Death Eaters. Those brave and loyal souls who have gone to Azkaban for our cause, unlike some…” he drawled, accusation tangible in his voice. He saw them flinch and pale. “The first step is to gain the loyalty of the Dementors. Once they have turned to our side, the security of the place will be inexistent, which will allow us to free our comrades.”

The door burst open again, this time to reveal Salazar and Catriona. “Papa,” began Catriona and his followers stared at the two with renewed shock. “Do you have any battery chargers around the house? I need one for my phone.”

“And I need one for my Switch,” said Salazar.

“No, I don’t have any chargers,” he said impatiently, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t even know what they are.”

“Can we go buy one to a local muggle electronics shop?” asked Catriona.

“In case you haven’t noticed, this place isn’t exactly a city brimming with department stores, so the nearest muggle electronics shop is probably miles away from here and I’m reluctant to let you go off on your own. Secondly, do I look like I have muggle money just lying in my robe pockets? No, I don’t. I don’t have a single penny on my person.”

“Can’t you go to Gringotts and just convert some wizard money?” asked Salazar.

“I’m supposed to be dead for the general populace,” he deadpanned. “I can’t exactly show my face at Gringotts, which is situated in one of the busiest wizarding alleys in Britain, can I?”

“Then ask Mr Malfoy.”

He turned to Lucius. “Lucius, you will convert some of your money to muggle money.” He turned to his children. “How much do you need?”

“About twenty pounds, maybe less, but let’s say twenty, just to be sure.”

“You heard them,” said Voldemort to Lucius. “You will bring twenty muggle pounds tomorrow.”

“We’ll pay you back, Mr Malfoy,” said Salazar.

The blond stared dumbfounded at the teenagers and nodded. “Of course,” he said, clearing his throat and composing himself.

“Thank you, Mr Malfoy!” Catriona and Salazar exclaimed. “Say hello to Uncle Draco in our name. Have a nice evening!”

Deathly silence reigned again. Lucius looked like a marble statue.

“Next point on our agenda is the war effort,” Voldemort continued seamlessly. “Now that I’m back, we will resume our efforts from fourteen years ago, this time we will focus on taking over the Ministry, because if we have the Ministry under our control, we’ll soon have the rest of the wizarding Britain in our hands as well.”

The door burst open for the third time. “Papa!” yelled Lana in distress. “Where’s the toilet? I can’t find the toilet!”

“What do you mean you can’t find the toilet?” he asked confused. “Didn’t you say that Riddle Manor is your home?”

“Yes, but apparently the toilet is in a different place than the one we have at home and now I can’t find it and it’s an emergency and …” the poor girl was on the verge of tears.

“It’s located at the end of the corridor on the first floor,” he said calmly.

“Thank you.” She was about to leave, when she, too, halted and addressed the audience. “Um, I would like to make an announcement,” she started after clearing her throat into her little fist. “The bathroom at the end of the corridor on the first floor will be occupied until further notice, because I have to go poop and I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Lana,” he said, sighing. “We don’t talk about pooping in public.”

“I just wanted to be considerate and inform them in case someone else needed to use the loo.”

“How nice of you,” he said sarcastically, but she didn’t register it as such, so she looked proud of herself.

“Bye, everyone!” she waved at them and left.

The fourth time the interruption happened; he didn’t even see it or hear it, until he saw his followers staring at his left side of the table. When he looked down, he saw Iphigenia resting her fist-paws and her chin on the table.

He cleared his throat and Iphigenia looked up at him. “What is it, Iphigenia?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said the girl shyly.

“Then why are you here?” he insisted. “You know I’m busy.”

“I wanted to be with you, papa,” she whispered, her ears flattened. “I promise to be quiet.”

He regarded her for a few seconds, then sighed and succumbed to her kitten eyes and her sweet, timid voice. “Come here, then,” he said, picked her up and placed her on his lap, ignoring the disbelieving stares of his Death Eaters. Her ears perked up and her tail began swooshing excitedly. Her face beamed like sunshine. She snuggled close to him.

Less than ten minutes later, the monotonous nature of the meeting made her drowsy and he could see her trying to keep herself awake, without success.

Shortly after, Lana the Tornado returned, making her sister jump awake. “I finished! The toilet is free for use!” she announced proudly to everyone.

“That’s wonderful, Lana,” he drawled, “but next time, could you, please, knock before entering?”

She left, closed the door, knocked on it and then entered again. “Like this?” she asked him, her face holding excitement.

“Like that, yes. Very good.”

She beamed. “I also managed to wipe my behind on my own,” she said proudly, “and I flushed the toilet and washed my hands … twice.” She showed two fingers. “Just in case I didn’t wash them well the first time.”

“Brilliant,” he said with a tense smile, while mortification consumed him on the inside.

“I’ll be going now. Bye again, everyone!” She waved with effusion and left the room.

He resumed his meeting. There was only one point left to discuss, Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix. Just then, someone’s stomach grumbled. Iphigenia’s tail was fidgeting. “Was that you, Iphigenia?”

She nodded, with mortification on her face.

“If you’re hungry, you should have said something,” he admonished her softly.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she whined softly.

“Well, what do you want to eat?”

“Oats,” she said softly. “With milk, chocolate flakes and hazelnuts.”

“Winky,” he called. Barty’s elf appeared with a pop. “Prepare a bowl of oats with milk, chocolate flakes and hazelnuts for Iphigenia,” he instructed.

Five minutes later, the elf was back with Iphigenia’s night snack. “Thank you, Winky!” she beamed at the elf.

The elf was shocked and looked like crying. Iphigenia looked up at him in alarm. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Not at all, Iphigenia.” He stroked her hair and rubbed her cat ears. “The elf was just shocked that you’ve expressed kindness to it.”

“My papa and daddy always say that good manners are everything. They always say that I have to give thanks when someone does something nice for me and if I want someone to do something for me, I have to ask nicely with please,” she explained softly, smiling.

His chest felt tight from Iphigenia’s cuteness and he found himself smiling back at her. “That is very nice, Iphigenia. Very nice, indeed.”

She smiled brightly at him and dug into her oats and by the time she finished eating, he had finally managed to end the meeting.

Unfortunately, his followers were going to gossip among each other about the six children in his house and, no doubt, Severus would bring the information to Dumbledore’s attention as well at the earliest convenience.

Oh, well. He’ll just have to live with it … for a month.

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_30 June 2017, 21:15_

After he collected himself and made sure his eyes didn’t look red from crying, he got up and informed his most trusted of what had occurred through floo calls and demanded their presence by half past nine.

Once everyone he trusted his children’s safety with was informed, he began investigating the manor again. This time, he noticed that the door to Delphini’s lab was ajar and that artificial lighting was coming out of it. He entered his daughter’s laboratory and found it empty.

If it was empty, why was the light on?

He entered and started scouring the place and soon found a purple stain on the marble floor, next to a shelf and two broken vials. He kneeled and touched the stain. It was dry. He picked a fragment of the vial and sniffed it. No smell.

He would analyse the fragments for any residue so he carefully levitated them to his daughter’s research table and placed them under the magnifying glass.

There wasn’t much to see, the liquid having evaporated completely, but there were tiny purple crystals gathered on the glass surface.

By means of deduction, he reconstructed that the two vials contained the same liquid and that they fell on the ground, in the same place, and left a stain. From his recollection, he knew the liquid was supposed to be neon. The spherical stain suggested to him a portal. To another dimension? Time travel?

He knew that Delphini had been researching interdimensional travel in recent months and that she had recently come up with a concoction that she believed allowed dimension travelling through portals, but complained about how time-consuming the creation process was and the rarity and the astronomical prices of the ingredients involved.

He reached for her journals and began flipping through the contents pages, where she catalogued all her experiments and documented everything she put her body through. It still made his skin crawl to know that his daughter, his firstborn, would follow his example in such a way. She might not have split her soul into fragments, but she methodically changed her body, her very genes, to make herself stronger in her own way, regardless of the pain, of the cost. She was hardly human anymore.

He found an entry titled ‘Dimension-Travel Concoction’. He snorted, an amused smile dancing on his lips. Delphini might not lack in creativity for experiments, but she wasn’t particularly inventive and original with her names.

He flipped to the page where she had written the final version of the recipe and skimmed through it. Everything seemed to concord with his theory, and while he was still uncertain where his children had landed and whether they were safe, watered and fed, it helped him calm down enough to think rationally again and focus on bringing them back.

It would serve to calm down Harry as well, keep him busy and focussed on the potion, with Severus overlooking the entire process, making sure they didn’t overlook anything. He didn’t want to think about the reason they would just up and leave without leaving a note for them yet.

Whimpers brought him out of his thoughts, and he immediately apparated to his husband’s side. He had woken up from a nightmare, agitated. Then he remembered that their children were truly gone and he burst into tears all over again.

“Love,” he called to him gently, “I know what happened to our children, and I know how to get them back, please, calm down. You’re going to work yourself into a heart attack.”

Harry stilled, his sobs stopped abruptly. “You do?” he looked up at him with so much hope it would rip him apart if he were wrong about this.

He nodded.

“Do you remember Delphini developing a way to travel through dimensions?” Harry nodded. “Well, good news is that they used her dimension-travel potion to travel to another dimension. Bad news is that there’s no more samples left for us to use immediately and that we’re still nowhere near to knowing in which dimension they are and what is happening to them right now. However, Delphini always keeps records of her experiments in her journals and there’s the final and perfected version of that same potion in one of them. We’re going to use her instructions to make two doses, enough for us to travel to wherever they are and travel back with all of them.”

Harry’s eyes filled with tears again. This time, he assured him they were joyful tears. “But are you sure we’re going to end in the same dimension as them?”

“I suppose that’s the risk we’ll have to take,” he said gravely, his mouth set in a grim line. “However, it is my theory that if we open a portal in the same place as they did, that we will land in the exact same place they landed – dimension and location. Then, we’ll track them from there.”

Harry nodded again. “We should start the potion tomorrow.”

“It will take at least a month to get to the end result, Harry,” he warned gently. “Will you be able to endure a month without them?”

Harry was silent, a frown between his brows. Then, he nodded, determined. “It’s not like I have a choice, do I?” he huffed. “But why did they just go, without leaving a note? Why would they cause us such anguish? Are we bad parents? Is that why they left? Because we were awful to them?”

Harry was getting himself worked up again with his thoughts and he hugged him to his chest. “It’s not that, Harry.”

“How do you know?” he snapped brokenly. “How do you know that, when you’re almost never here!” Harry reproached him and he stiffened. “It’s always work, work and more work with you!” He weakly hit him on the chest, sobbing hysterically. He didn’t know what to do to calm him.

“When was the last time we did anything as a family?” Harry continued to rant. “When was the last time you went to Catriona’s dance performance or Lana’s judo matches? Your son almost _killed_ himself, because he couldn’t put up with the pressure and the expectations _you,_ ” he felt Harry’s index finger dig into his chest accusatorily, “put on him, and neither _you_ nor _I_ saw the signs until _after_ his failed attempt! Our eldest has been hurting herself for years so she would not be a burden to us and neither you nor I noticed what she was doing to herself until after all the irreversible damage had been done to her body!”

He ran out of steam and breath and pressed his hands to his eyes. Tom felt like being torn apart from the inside by Harry’s words. All of this was his doing, wasn’t it? He was a bad father, not Harry. He was the one neglecting his children, too busy running a country that kept rejecting him, blaming him for every single bad thing that was happening.

“Our relationship and our family have always been far from normal or perfect, but sometimes it seems as if we’re nothing but puzzle pieces that don’t fit together and that the only thing keeping us together is some shitty glue that could snap under the slightest of strains,” Harry said bitterly.

Red-eyed, he looked at him. “And what do you do when all this is happening? You attend meetings, diplomatic parties, occasionally you feel like destroying a country as revenge and then you expand your Inferi Army, and all the while, your family is falling apart right in front of your eyes and you’re too blind or too conceited to acknowledge it, because being Emperor is more important to you than your family.”

“That’s not true,” he said, his voice strained, his jaw clenched, expression wild. “That’s not true, Harry, and you know it.”

“Then prove it,” he challenged him. “Prove that you can put your children and me first when there’s no mortal danger involved.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Step down as Emperor and become the husband and father I know you can be.”

Tom stared, wide-eyed, at Harry. “Do you realise what you’re asking of me, Harry?”

“I do, I’m asking you to sacrifice your ambition, the thing you’ve put your blood and sweat into, for us – the kids and me. I know I’m asking a lot, but I don’t do it because I want to hurt you.”

“You’re not?” he asked sarcastically, bitterly. “You’re just telling me you intend to abandon me if I don’t choose you and the kids over my life’s work, you’re telling me what a bad father and husband I am and you still say your intention isn’t to hurt me?”

“I’m never going to abandon or leave you, Tom Marvolo Riddle, don’t put words in my mouth,” Harry snarled, anger overtaking his features. “I’ve known for a long time how imperfect you are as a man, as a husband and as a father, but I still love you the way you are, damn it! Despite the nature of our bonding, that day, when I turned sixteen, I swore to be with you through thick and thin, through riches and poverty, through health and sickness and I don’t intend to go back on my oath to you, damn it, but you _have_ to make a choice. Because you are clearly incapable of juggling both – your family and your work. Why do you even employ people like Severus, Hermione, Barty, Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Luna, when you end up carrying the burden of running a country on your shoulders … alone? Is it for decoration or because you think them capable enough to take over certain areas of your country’s life force, such as commerce, law, industry, economy, and armed forces?” He cupped his face. “You were supposed to be the one giving orders, not the one carrying them out.”

Tom was speechless. Harry’s words still cut deep and it would take him a while to recover from their effects, but for now, he was relieved to know that Harry wasn’t going to abandon him and that he still loved him despite his glaring faults.

He covered his husband’s hands with his and pressed their foreheads together.

“I’ll do a better job as a father and husband,” he promised hoarsely. “I’ll pay attention to what’s happening with them, I’ll be more involved with what they’re doing, I’ll attend their competitions, I’ll be there for them when they need me, even when they don’t face any direct danger, I’ll be here for all the birthdays, anniversaries, and family meals. If you see me failing on my promises and going back to letting work consume me, remind me of what is important again. Gently this time. I don’t think my pride and ego can take another bout of such visceral verbal assault without irreparable damage.”

A snort escaped Harry’s lips, just as he burst into tears of joy again. He leant forward and pressed a wet and salty kiss to his lips. “With pleasure, my love, because that’s what you are … the love of my life.”

He swallowed hard and tears prickled his eyes again. He swooped in and captured Harry’s lips into a desperate and passionate kiss full of yearning, in which he did his damnedest to convey just how much he meant to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little gift, just like how I enjoyed writing it, especially the meeting bit. Lana and Iphigenia are my absolute favourites to write. I can really go crazy and wild whenever they are in the scene. 😂😂
> 
> The second half of the chapter is considerably sad and while I enjoyed writing the dialogue, it was also emotionally taxing, because of how heavy the words feel. But what matters is that despite having a bit of tension, the other Harry and Tom have immediately reconciled ... because they love each other that much and can't stay angry at one another for long.


	5. Voldemort’s Kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry overhears a conversation about Voldemort's children, learns that men can get pregnant, finds out that a man gave birth to Voldemort's children, but fails to hear who the bearer of the children is. Naturally, he can't stop wondering who the madman having sex with Voldemort and giving birth to his children is and if that means that Voldemort is married and that he is a loving spouse and parent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! 🎆🎇✨🎉🎊Hopefully 2021 ends up being a good year overall. Here is the gift I promised yesterday. 😁Hope you enjoy it. 🤗 It's centered around Harry, but there's also a scene where the Order members have their chat.

_12 Grimmauld Place II_

_30 June 1995, 21:20_

Ever since school let out, Harry had been staying at his godfather’s place, which was incidentally also the headquarters of Dumbledore’s resistance group that went by the name the Order of the Phoenix.

It came as a pleasant, if unexpected, surprise, when the headmaster called him up to his office at the end of the term and told him that, in light of recent events, he decided that he would not be returning to the Dursleys, but that he would instead be staying at the headquarters of the Order.

“We cannot be sure whether your mother’s blood protection is still in place now that Voldemort has used your blood to return, therefore, you will be spending your summer holidays with your godfather at the Order’s headquarters, which is under the Fidelius Charm and thus unreachable for Voldemort,” said Dumbledore.

Harry was stunned. “Are you serious, Professor?” He couldn’t believe it. “I really don’t have to go back to the Dursleys anymore?”

Dumbledore smiled softly. “Yes, Harry, I’m being very serious.”

Harry’s heart inflated with happiness and excitement, but above all else, infinite gratitude. “Thank you, Professor,” he breathed, feeling like crying of joy. “Thank you for this. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

That conversation happened a week ago, and ever since then, Harry has been living his best life: sleeping until ten or eleven in the morning, going to bed past midnight, eating whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, not being forced to do chores although he helped out and kept his room clean out of principal. Moreover, the best part of it all was that he could spend as much time as he wanted talking to his godfather, without all the secrecy. The only downsides to living at Grimmauld Place were the grumpy house elf Kreacher, who kept muttering insults to himself and the portrait of Sirius’ mother that was screaming obscenities whenever they passed her through the cloth that was covering her.

Of course, Sirius and Harry weren’t the only inhabitants of Grimmauld Place. There were also Remus, who, after losing his job as the DADA Professor and being exposed as a werewolf, had a hard time finding another job, his friend Hermione, who arrived only the day before, and the Weasley family who joined them two days ago.

He was sharing a room with Ron, while Ginny and Hermione shared one between themselves. Fred and George were sharing one as well. The reason they were sharing, despite the house having multiple rooms on each of the floors, was that most of the rooms were inhabitable and in disuse.

When Mrs Weasley saw the state of the residence, she was beside herself with horror and disgust and was already organising a cleaning expedition to make the place habitable, in which everyone would participate.

Right now, they had just finished eating dinner and were playing some Exploding Snaps in the dining room, when the front door opened and shut.

“Who could that be at this hour?” wondered Molly loudly and went to check. They stopped playing to eavesdrop.

“Albus, Severus,” she greeted and Harry and his friends exchanged inquisitive looks. “What brings you here?”

“Business, I’m afraid, though I wouldn’t mind a plate of your lovely cooking,” Dumbledore’s voice said amiably.

“I’ll send the kids upstairs, while you and the others make yourselves comfortable in the dining room,” said Molly.

“Thank you, Molly,” answered Dumbledore.

Ron’s mother returned and started shooing them to their rooms. “Go on, it’s getting late,” she was saying. “Go get ready for bed. We have a long day of cleaning ahead of us tomorrow and you need to be well-rested.”

“But mum,” whined Ron in protest, “It’s not even half past nine yet.”

“Did I stutter, Ronald Weasley?”

“No,” he grumbled.

“Then do as I say.” She turned to the twins. “You too, Fred, George. Just because you are of age and can use magic outside of school that doesn’t mean you can just do as you please,” she said sternly.

“As you say, mother,” they said in unison and apparated away, much to Molly’s dismay.

The others – Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny – obeyed, gathered the cards and went upstairs, bypassing the headmaster and Snape. “Goodnight, Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape,” they greeted together.

Dumbledore smiled brightly at them. “Good night, children. Sleep well.” Snape didn’t even bother to greet back or even acknowledge their greeting. However, he did stare intently at Harry, boring his obsidian eyes into him.

As Harry and Ron entered their bedroom, they saw Fred and George lounging in their beds.

“Would you stop with the bragging, you two,” snapped Ron at his brothers, “and get off my bed, George.”

“Jealous, Ronnykins?” teased his brother.

“Don’t worry,” said Fred, “in a little less than two years, you too will be of age.”

“Why are you in our bedroom?” wondered Harry.

The twins’ faces lit up with mischief. “Aren’t you curious to learn what the adults are discussing downstairs?” Fred asked and pulled out what looked like a severed human ear.

“What the hell?” Harry breathed, horrified.

They laughed. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” assured him George.

“It’s an eavesdropping device,” said Fred.

“Developed by yours truly.” They concluded together.

With a hand to his chest, Harry let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God that it isn’t an actual human ear. For a moment there, I was seriously worried. What do you call it?”

“An Extendable Ear,” they said in unison.

“Fitting,” he remarked.

“So, what do you say? Are you tempted to listen in on the Order meeting?” prompted Fred.

“I reckon they’ll talk about You-Know-Who,” said George.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious to know what was going on in the dining room, therefore, he decided to be honest and accepted the twins’ offer to eavesdrop on the meeting.

Ron, not wanting to be left out, joined them as well.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a sharp female whisper admonished them a minute later, just as the twins had managed to set up the ear perfectly.

Of course, they all almost jumped out of their skins and Ron even let out a small cry of surprise.

“Damn it, Hermione,” said Ron, still clutching at his chest, recovering his wits. “Don’t ever sneak up on us like that.”

“If your conscience was clean, you wouldn’t be almost fainting from fear at being caught,” she snapped back at him reproachfully. “Honestly,” she shook her head in disappointment, “I expected this from Fred and George, but you two, how shameful.”

“Sh,” whispered Fred sharply at Hermione. “Quiet, we can’t hear what they’re saying.”

Hermione gaped at him in disbelief. She was about to say something to him, maybe even smack him on the head for being so disrespectful, but Ginny stopped her and even managed to convince her to join in on the eavesdropping.

“Come on, Hermione. It could be important for Harry to hear what they have to say, with You-Know-Who on the loose again and all that.”

Hermione still looked against it, but ended up changing her mind and agreeing to spy on the meeting. “Fine,” she huffed, “but only because of Harry.”

Harry smiled gratefully to his friend. “Thank you,” he mouthed.

“Will you shut up and let us listen?” snapped Fred, on the verge of losing his cool.

With all of them silent like mice, the words of the meeting travelled up the ear’s extension right to them.

“… The Dark Lord wants Potter,” said Snape.

“We already know that, Snape,” drawled Sirius.

“This time, it’s different, Black. He doesn’t want him dead, he wants him captured and brought to him unharmed.”

Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If Voldemort didn’t want to kill him anymore, what could the man possibly want with him?

“Why?” gasped Molly. “For what purpose?”

“He says an anonymous source told him something about the Potter brat that he wants to confirm and for that he needs him before him and unharmed,” said Snape. “However … that’s not even the worst part,” he continued.

“What else is there?” questioned Sirius.

“There appear to be … children at his manor. _His_ children.”

Everyone’s jaw fell open, while their eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

“WHAT?” Sirius bellowed, perfectly mimicking their own incredulity and shock at the news. “VOLDEMORT HAS CHILDREN?”

“It would appear so. They called him father and … papa. He seemed familiar with them and used to their presence, but he never explicitly said anything, he completely ignored the subject.”

“How many children are we talking about exactly?” inquired Remus.

“Six … at least,” deadpanned Snape. “Four girls and two boys.”

“SIX?” yelled Sirius in shock, again perfectly synchronised with their own thoughts and feelings. “I can’t fucking believe it. What woman would consider opening her legs for that bald, snake dude with no nose? Unless of course he forced himself on the poor woman or women, there could be multiple mothers for all we know.”

“I strongly doubt that,” said Snape.

“What are their ages?” asked Tonks. “Are they young or mature?”

“Young, ranging from twenty years to a year, if I had to chance a guess.”

“What is your assessment of the situation, Severus?” Dumbledore’s serene voice asked.

“I am unable to determine the nature of the children’s conception, however, they appear to have been conceived by the same person, they seem healthy and happy … and contrary to what you think, Black, the one opening the legs for the Dark Lord isn’t a woman, but rather a man.”

‘ _Men can get pregnant?_ ’ Harry wondered. That was an entirely new concept for him. Since nobody explicitly said anything, he assumed that with wizards it was the same as with Muggles: only women could get pregnant and carry children.

Apparently, he was wrong in making assumptions and he should probably start reading more. Maybe Hermione could recommend a few books … as long as it wasn’t _Hogwarts: A History_.

“What makes you say that, Severus?” Dumbledore insisted.

“One of the girls spoke of papa and daddy, and I don’t know about you, but the last time I checked daddy was an affectionate way to call a male parent, not to mention the resemblance, Albus. It’s the bloody resemblance; his eyes, his hair, there’s even a girl that looks just like him.”

“Like who, Snape?” Sirius demanded and Harry was glued to the eavesdropping device, waiting with morbid fascination and curiosity to hear the identity of the man who has carried and given birth to Voldemort’s children.

“Like P–”

The connection disappeared.

“What the fuck,” exclaimed Ron, upset, “just when it was getting juicy.”

They all looked down and saw Hermione’s cat gnawing at the ear. They all turned their frustrated looks to Hermione.

“Bad Crookshanks,” she admonished the cat. “Don’t touch that.”

The cat snapped the cord attached to the ear and ran off with its prey to some secluded place.

“I swear to Merlin, Hermione,” said Ron with narrowed eyes, “one day I’m going to skin that bloody cat of yours.”

With the identity of the bearer of Voldemort’s children lost to them, together with the rest of the meeting, the six of them went to their respective rooms and pretended to be asleep.

…

_Meanwhile_

“Like Potter,” said Snape.

The entire room went silent as varying degrees of shock and dismay appeared on the faces of the Order members.

“No,” breathed Sirius, shaking his head, looking like he was about to faint. “No, there must be a mistake. My godson would never agree to such madness as having sex and giving birth to Voldemort’s children willingly. That bastard must have forced him.”

“Surely you are mistaken, Severus,” intervened Albus, pale as well. “Harry is but a boy still, he couldn’t have been the one to have birthed those children.”

“Maybe not the one currently sleeping upstairs, Albus,” he said with a hard voice, “but perhaps a different version of him.”

Albus’ eyes widened. “Are you speaking of time-travel?”

“That or a different dimension or both, the fact remains that, wherever they came from, they look like the Dark Lord and Harry Potter. Hell, there’s even a girl with Lily’s hair and James’ eyes.”

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears to drown out Snape’s words. “This is not real, this is not real. I’m dreaming. My godson didn’t have sex with Voldemort and he didn’t give birth to his children,” he was repeating to himself like a mantra.

“How do we confirm anything?” asked Tonks.

“I say we infiltrate that monster’s lair by having Snape present Harry to him and while there, he could snatch up one of the six children and bring them here for a parentage test.”

“We will do no such thing,” snapped Molly viciously. As a mother, hearing such words from someone who had no partner or kids made blood boil in her veins. “We will not take Harry to that horrid man like some sort of sacrificial lamb and we most certainly will not kidnap a defenceless child, even if one of the parents is You-Know-Who himself. What sort of people would that make us?”

“Molly is right,” agreed Albus, his face hard and his scolding look fixed on Hestia. “We will not resort to such low and inhumane tactics. We are not Voldemort or his Death eaters.”

“Not to mention such an act of defiance would no doubt expose me as a spy for the Order, Jones,” Severus added derisively. “Forget it.”

“Albus,” intervened Moody, “I know you want to be noble and do the honourable thing, but this is war and you can’t expect us to win against someone like Voldemort if we don’t resort to dirty tactics.”

“Alastor, I know you want this nightmare to be over as soon as possible, but I am not going to emerge victorious by harming innocent children.” There was no usual amiable twinkle in his eyes, only harsh determination.

“Judging by the fact that there are six Potter and You-Know-Who’s children in existence, I say the boy is far from innocent if he’s willing to spread his legs and whore himself out to that monster, and no children coming from that bastard can be innocent. They are the spawns of the Devil himself,” said Mundungus Fletcher casually.

Molly, Severus, Sirius, Albus and Remus looked downright murderous. A second later, Mundungus found himself on the floor, with a split lip and a broken nose, and with Sirius grabbing him by his jacket, ready to pummel him to death for daring to disrespect his godson and any children he might have … even if Voldemort fathered them.

“Sirius, calm down,” said Moody, restraining the man with physical force.

“I’m going to knock all his teeth out for such blatant disrespect to my godson,” growled and snarled Sirius.

For once, Molly agreed with Sirius.

Hestia helped Mundungus up, who was nursing his bleeding jaw and broken nose. “What are you getting all worked up for?” he mumbled through his injuries. “It’s the truth, ain’t it?”

Sirius reached out to grab for Fletcher, rage burning in his eyes. Fletcher hid behind Jones while Moody struggled to keep Sirius from pouncing and tearing Fletcher apart.

“What if we told Harry about this and convinced him to go to Voldemort on his own and then once there, he could do the parentage test on the toddler?” suggested Tonks, trying to diffuse the conflict, but instead only managed to divert Sirius’ murder intent and become the target herself.

“We will do no such thing,” snarled Molly. “Harry does not need to know about any of this. Not when he’s only fourteen. If in a few years’ time, he does in fact conceive You-Know-Who’s children, that’s something we’ll worry about then, not now.”

“Molly is right,” said Albus. “We will not reveal anything to Harry until this matter is resolved and, even then, we’ll keep him in the dark for as long as possible. There’s no need to place the burden of such knowledge on him.”

Tonks shrugged. “Fine. It was just a suggestion. No need to overreact,” she mumbled.

…

Harry found that he had trouble sleeping, because all he could think about was that Voldemort was a parent to six happy and healthy children and that there was someone out there who had had sex with the man to give birth to them.

Did that mean that Voldemort was married to the “mother” of his children or were the children conceived out of wedlock? Did Voldemort force the man to have sex with him or was there actually a man out there who had fallen in love with him and willingly gave himself to Voldemort?

It was easier to imagine the former, because his mind had a difficult time conceiving the idea of Voldemort as a loving spouse, lover and father. Then again, until tonight he had thought men couldn’t get pregnant and he was proven wrong … He could be proven wrong with Voldemort and his capacity to love.

“Harry?” Ron whispered.

“Hm?”

“Are you sleeping?”

“No,” he retorted in a whisper as well. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about what we heard today. I mean, You-Know-Who having children. Mental I tell you, and apparently, the big bad Dark Lord is gay and there’s apparently a madman who lets Voldemort fuck him regularly, because how else would you explain the fact that there are six children.”

“Yeah, I can’t wrap my head around it either,” he agreed.

“But the more I think about it, the less everything makes sense.”

Harry sat up in his bed. “What do you mean?”

Ron mimicked him. “Come on, Harry, think for a moment. From Snape’s assessment of the children’s age, which is from one year to twenty years, it doesn’t fucking make sense for You-Know-Who to have conceived most of those babies while he had no body to have sex in, does it?” he said, affronted.

Harry shook his head. “No.”

“So how the bloody fuck are there children involved, when there was no sperm to conceive them?” he exclaimed. “I mean, there have been instances of magical pregnancies where the magic compatibility of two wizards created a child, but those are fucking rare and while You-Know-Who may be powerful, I doubt he is powerful enough to fuck his magic into someone whose magic is compatible with his to conceive at least one child let alone two or more. Something’s fishy about this, Harry, and I am determined to find out what it is, otherwise, I won’t be able to sleep in peace.”

Harry gaped at his friend. “Why, mate?” He didn’t understand why Ron was so invested in this … gossip. He never struck him as such. “What’s it to you how Voldemort conceived babies while in a wraith form?”

“Curiosity, why else?” he said nonchalantly. “Besides, who wouldn’t want to get to the bottom of such a juicy rumour? It isn’t every day that something this interesting and intriguing happens and I want to get to the bottom of it. What? Are you going to tell me you’re not dying to find out the identity of the man who gave birth to those children?”

Harry felt heat rise in his cheeks. “Yes, but …” he sputtered, embarrassed. “It’s not my place to get involved in things that are not my business.”

“But it _is_ your business,” Ron protested, “Voldemort has been after you, trying to kill you, since you were a baby, and now he suddenly wants you unharmed so he can confirm something somebody said to him about you and now there are suddenly kids in the mix too. Coincidence? I think not,” he concluded dramatically.

Harry frowned, then, as the implication of his friend’s words registered in his mind, he was horrified. “You’re not suggesting Voldemort not wanting to harm me and the presence and existence of these kids are somehow connected, are you?”

“All I’m saying is that there are too many inexplicable things going on and answering one mystery might end up unravelling all the others.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to uncover the identity of the mysterious man, when all we know about him is that his name starts with a P,” said Harry after calming down a bit.

“We also know that Snape knows him,” Ron reminded him.

“Still,” insisted Harry, “we don’t have much of a lead, do we, and I doubt the adults would tell us anything, when they don’t even let us attend the meetings.”

Silence filled the room, as the two boys were deep in thought looking for a strategy. Then, suddenly, Ron gasped, as if an idea had occurred to him. “I’ve got it,” he said whispering excitedly. “Voldemort wants to get his hands on you, unharmed, so it shouldn’t really matter whether you’re captured or if you present yourself willingly to him.”

Harry sputtered with indignation. He couldn’t believe what his best mate was suggesting. “Are you fucking mental?” he whispered harshly. “Do you even realise what you’re suggesting? You want me to surrender myself to Voldemort.”

“Yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “That’s exactly what I want you to do. Think about it, if you end up at his place, you’ll get access to the children, who live at his place. Hell, maybe you’ll get to meet the bearer of the children himself!”

“And you think Voldemort would just let me roam around his place freely,” Harry snorted sarcastically. He let out a heavy sigh and pinched his nose. “Look, I know my sanity is sometimes questionable and that I’ve gone with shitty plans before, but even I’m not mental enough to think this sort of plan would work.”

Ron huffed. “How can you be so sure it will fail, when you haven’t even tried it yet?”

Harry gaped again. “And how exactly would I surrender myself to the man, when I’m not allowed outside without bodyguards?”

“Write to him.”

“Oh, yeah,” continued Harry his voice dripping sarcasm. “Silly me, how didn’t this thought occur to me? Pray tell, how would I do that and what exactly would I write to him? Perhaps, something like … _Dear Voldemort. Harry here, I heard you wanted to see me for something and I have decided to surrender myself to you. Would you be so kind as to pick me up tomorrow at three in the afternoon near Claremont Square, Islington, London? Yours truly, Harry Potter_ ,” he concluded.

To his dismay, Ron thought it was a brilliant idea. “I would just have to convince my mum to let us go outside under the pretext of hanging out,” he said excitedly. Harry wanted to strangle him for that answer.

“I swear to God, Ron,” he seethed. “I’m this close to strangling you for trying to sell me out like this for a bit of juicy gossip.”

“Sell you out?” he guffawed, “Never, Harry. Besides, you can’t sell out someone, when they are equally curious to know what’s going on,” he said.

“I don’t want Voldemort to experiment on me,” he whispered through his clenched jaw.

“Maybe the experiments will be pleasurable,” suggested Ron, trying to be helpful, but it only served to incense Harry more.

“Yeah, because poking at me with a knife or a needle is the epitome of pleasure,” he remarked darkly. He lay down and turned his back to Ron. “Goodnight, Ron,” he said dryly, his eyes shut, determined to ignore Ron’s insane midnight ramblings and get some sleep.


	6. Like a Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other Harry and Tom are re-watching family memories to make the pain of being separated from their children more tolerable, while Voldemort makes the decision to be a father to his counterpart's children and starts by establishing authority and learning about them.

_Riddle Manor I_

_1 July 2017, 7:48_

Tom woke up, only to find the place Harry occupied next to him in bed empty and cold. As the events of the previous evening crashed into him like a tsunami – the disappearance of their children, the fight that ensued between Harry and him, the words Harry had said to him – renewed panic rose in his gut at the prospect of Harry abandoning him after all, despite his words of reassurance the night before.

In a flash, he was up and wrenching the wardrobe open to see whether Harry’s clothes were still next to his. A quick scan of the contents showed him that nothing was out of place. He hurried to the corridor. “Harry,” he called loudly, trying not to sound desperate.

“In the living room, darling,” his consort’s muffled voice came from downstairs. Hearing him return his call had Tom sagging against the nearest wall in relief. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if he had lost his husband too.

Gathering his wits, he joined Harry in the living room, where he was sitting on the sofa, his gaze glued to the large TV screen he was talked into buying some years ago. He had been reluctant to introduce anything muggle into his home, but due to Catriona being a squib and Harry’s muggle childhood, he succumbed to his husband’s gentle persuasion and finally purchased muggle technology.

Right now, he was glad he let them convince him, because otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to record the videos Harry was watching; videos of their family gatherings, anniversaries, birthdays and holidays, Lana’s judo matches, Catriona’s dance competitions, Iphigenia and Alexander’s first steps, or just everyday occurrences in their household.

Harry was in the middle of one particular video where Lana, aged six, and he were role-playing as doctor and patient, respectively. He remembered feeling a little under the weather when the video happened, so their little game of doctors and patients fit the occasion.

He sat next to his consort on the sofa and pulled him into an embrace. Harry snuggled close to him.

‘Hello,’ greeted Lana in the recording.

‘Hello,’ he returned his voice raspy.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked bluntly, no tact whatsoever.

Harry in the recording laughed and the one sitting on the sofa next to him, in the safety of his arms, laughed too. His lips curled up as well.

‘I was hoping you would tell me,’ his counterpart in the recording deadpanned. ‘You’re the doctor, aren’t you?’

‘Of course,’ she said importantly. She opened a notebook. ‘Does you head hurt?’

‘A little.’

She pretended to write something down. ‘What about your throat. Does it hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been coughing?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘Do you have a fever?’

‘A mild one.’

‘Anything else?’

‘My body feels heavy and sluggish.’

With a frown and her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, she wrote down her diagnosis. Then, she went ahead, used a broken yo-yo as her stethoscope, and listened to his heart and lungs.

‘You’re suffering from a common cold,’ she finally announced to him. ‘I’m afraid we’ve run out of medicine for it, but as your doctor I say that you’ll feel better with plenty of tea and bed rest. No work,’ she said sternly.

‘And how long will it take me to get better?’

‘Seven days … or if not seven days, then a week.’

‘Isn’t that the same?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she said with a straight face, completely serious.

‘It is,’ he insisted. ‘A week is the same as seven days.’

‘Who’s the doctor here: you or me?’

‘You.’

‘So, as you’re doctor, if I say that seven days is not the same as a week then it’s not the same and you don’t question my judgement. Now go to bed and stay there. I don’t want to see you working or I’ll be really mad with you, papa.’

‘As you say, Dr Riddle.’

Harry beside him burst into boisterous laughter. “Oh, Lana,” he sighed with fondness.

He remembered he wanted to follow Lana’s command, but failed to do so when two days after that video was recorded, Lana was kidnapped. His health worsened as well, because the cold developed into influenza. He had high fever, his body ached, he coughed like a dying man, his sense of smell and taste were useless, and his magic was all over the place. Yet when Harry received the floo call informing him of the incident at Voldemort’s Primary School for Magical Children, he was adamant to accompany Harry and look for her.

“Tom, you’re in no condition to transform into your animagus form to track down Lana. Let Sirius, Severus and Barty look for her,” Harry had said that day, trying to prevent him from getting out of bed with a thirty-nine point eight degrees Celsius fever, glassy eyes, deathly pale skin and him breathing like he’d run a marathon and was about to drop dead any minute.

“No,” he replied hoarsely, his voice barely even functional from all the pain and coughing, “she’s my daughter and I’ll get her back.” He swayed, lost his balance, and would have fallen if Harry hadn’t been there to hold him.

In the end, Harry relented and helped him look presentable by helping him dress and glamour his sickly appearance. They travelled by floo powder, to the Headmistress’ Office, from where he went to the scene of the kidnapping and investigated it.

There were signs of struggle and a few drops of blood. He took a sample for analysis, which showed him the identity of the kidnapper. From there, he traced the man down through dark blood magic to an abandoned warehouse, where he and a couple of others were keeping Lana hostage.

When he saw her tied up, crying, with a bruised eye and a gagged mouth, he lost it. Even with a brain-addling fever, he mustered enough strength and control over his fluctuating magic to lash out at them, sending them flying into the concrete walls. With the kidnappers incapacitated, he freed his daughter, who latched herself to him, sobbing softly into his shoulder.

“You should be in bed, resting,” she scolded him gently.

“How can I rest, when bad men have taken my baby girl away from her family?”

She sobbed harder. “I was so scared, papa,” she whined. He held her close, stroking her hair soothingly.

“I know you were, but it’s over now, Lana.”

“They were talking about selling me to a pervert,” she wailed in between hiccoughs.

His expression darkened and he held her tighter still.

“Those bad men won’t hurt you anymore. Nobody is going to sell you to any pervert, my sunshine. Your papa will make sure they never get their dirty hands on you to hurt you,” he promised, his dark and dangerous glare on the three scumbags trying to sell his daughter off to some paedophile.

With Lana secured in his arms and her face hidden in his neck, he proceeded to enact revenge on the three, by making them explode into shreds … literally, painting the walls of the warehouse blood red and pieces of flesh scattered all over the ground.

Somehow, he managed to apparate both safely to the manor, where Harry smothered their child with hugs and kisses. As adrenaline and rage seeped out of his body, his vision blurred and something warm and wet was coming out of his nose and down his throat. It was blood. That awful, gag-inducing metallic taste was unmistakable.

“Tom!” Harry said alarmed, when he looked up and saw blood pouring out of his nose.

“Papa!” Lana echoed Harry’s alarm.

A moment later, his vision went black and he collapsed on the floor.

Harry’s voice brought him back to the present as the video changed.

‘Look, Iphi,’ Harry inside the recording was cooing at their youngest daughter when she was a toddler, ‘It’s the sea. Do you like it?’ They were at the beach; Iphigenia was wearing an inflatable ring around her middle, waist deep in water. Harry was holding her while she was kicking with her tiny legs and making excited baby sounds.

He was the one recording the entire thing.

Iphigenia looked up, saw him, and grew even more excited. ‘What is it, Iphi?’ he looked up as well and smiled at him. ‘Who’s that? Huh?’ he went back to cooing at their daughter. ‘Who’s the person behind the camera?’

‘Papa,’ she exclaimed, showing off her blinding and mostly toothless smile.

‘Yes,’ Harry was saying excitedly as well. ‘It’s papa. Do you want to go to him?’

She answered by stretching out her tiny chubby arms towards the camera and Harry took the hint. ‘Let’s go to papa, Iphi,’ he crooned and slowly walked towards him, holding Iphigenia all the way, praising her, even though he and the floating ring were doing most of the work, but Iphigenia absolutely beamed when she reached him.

The scene changed again.

Harry was lying in their bed, holding a newborn Alexander, and smiling despite the exhaustion, while he and their kids were surrounding him. Barty was the one behind the camera.

‘He’s so small,’ whispered Lana. ‘And wrinkly. He looks like a baby grandpa.’

Video Harry and Tom chuckled quietly at the remark.

‘That’s because he was submerged in a liquid for nine months,’ explained Delphini to her sister. ‘Just like your hands and feet get all wrinkly when you soak for too long in the bathtub or the swimming pool.’

She gasped. ‘He’s been bathing for nine months?’ she said incredulously. ‘No wonder he’s all wrinkly. At least now he’s super clean and won’t have to worry about baths for the next nine months.’

They all burst into laughter over Lana’s comment. Even Harry and he.

‘I’m afraid, it doesn’t work like that, Lana,” chuckled Tom in the video, reaching out to ruffle her hair. ‘He’ll still have to bathe every day, because he’ll still get dirty.’

She nodded, dumbfounded.

‘Besides,’ added Delphini in her scientific mode, ‘he’s not been bathing in water for nine months, but amniotic fluid, which also consists of his pee and poop.’

Lana let out another melodramatic gasp. ‘EW!’ she covered her mouth and nose as she grimaced. ‘No wonder he’ll need daily baths in a clean water for the rest of his life after bathing, breathing and drinking his own pee and poop for nine months,’ she remarked horrified. ‘Honestly, how did he not get sick? Did he get sick from eating his poop and drinking his pee?’

They laughed again.

The scenery changed again.

It showed Salazar’s first day at Hogwarts and sorting, then Delphini’s graduation day, Lana’s first day at the primary school, a school play at Catriona’s school for squibs, their children playing with his few most trusted followers and their significant other’s children, their children participating in Samhain and paying respects to their grandparents and brother, Iphigenia and Alexander’s first steps.

By the time the disc ended, it was well past ten in the morning and Harry and he were emotional wrecks. Still, they forced themselves to make breakfast … where, for the first time in a long while, Harry didn’t have to cook for eight people … but only two.

There was a time, before Delphini was born, when Tom would have given everything to have the house for the two of them. Now that it was finally just the two of them, after living with their children for twenty years, the house felt too big, empty, lifeless … and meaningless.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_1 July 1995, 7:00_

For being Alexander’s first night away from father and dad, he slept surprisingly well throughout the night, noted Delphini. He had woken up twice during the entire night: once because he had soiled his diaper and demanded a fresh one, and once because he was hungry, but otherwise, he slept on peacefully.

It probably helped that he had all his siblings with him and that they were at Riddle Manor with a version of their father. Still, it was only a matter of time before that would not be enough anymore, and he realised that their parents weren’t there with them. Therefore, it was imperative that she start making the dimension-travel potion as soon as possible.

She woke up early to bathe Alex and change his diaper again. Then, once he was presentable, she freshened up herself as well, strapped him to her front using a bedsheet to imitate a baby sling and went downstairs to prepare breakfast for Alex and the rest of the family.

Out of habit, she prepared seven portions, only for her to realise that their parents were not there to eat their respective portions. Alexander had his own special one made of blended oats, bananas, apple and rice.

“Good morning.” A familiar male voice greeted her and she turned towards the door to find Barty standing there, looking like he had just woken up.

“Good morning to you too, Barty,” she greeted with a blinding smile. “Would you like a portion? I made two extras out of habit,” she added casually.

“Sure, why not,” he said, sitting down at the dining table and watched her place two toasted buns on a plate and fill them with some kind of sauce, fried chicken, cheese, fried eggs, and strips of crispy bacon.

“Here you go,” she said, placing the plate in front of him, “my special breakfast burger.”

“You could have called for Winky and told her to prepare the meal.” He bit into it and marvelled at the rich taste.

She shrugged, making four burgers for herself. “It’s habit, I guess. You see, we’ve never had house elves at home, because our dad is an adamant supporter of homemaking and taking care of your own home, especially if you’re a capable human being.”

“But aren’t a mansion and six children a bit too much for him to handle?” wondered Barty, chewing on the burger.

“Not at all,” she said, joining him at the table, with Alex in her lap. “If he’s too tired to do something the muggle way, then he uses magic instead, or has us help. Either way, he refuses to have house elves in his house for chores and for baby rearing.”

“I see,” he mumbled, taking another bite.

“Uncle Barty!” Lana yelled and tackled the man in a fierce hug, almost knocking him off the chair.

“Good morning, Lana,” he greeted awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands.

She beamed at him, her arms around his shoulders.

“Are Salazar, Catriona and Iphigenia still sleeping?” Delphini inquired.

“Aha.”

“Would you be so kind and go wake them up? Tell them that my special breakfast burger awaits them,” she instructed.

“Burger,” she repeated dreamily, trying to keep her saliva inside her mouth. “Okay!” She raced out of the kitchen.

Barty cleared his throat. “Am I really like an uncle to you?” he asked.

Delphini smiled, feeding a spoonful of porridge to Alex. “You’re like our second father, apart from being our personal bodyguard and one of father’s most trusted, which is a huge honour, because after all the bullshit that happened over the years since father became Emperor, there aren’t many people he allows close to his family.”

“What about my wife? Am I really married to Potter’s mudblood friend, Hermione Granger? Do I really have kids with her?”

“I don’t think our uncle Barty would be happy with you referring to his wife with that term,” she warned, still feeding her baby brother, who was eagerly gulping down the porridge. “He is probably guilty of calling her that himself at the beginning of their relationship, but after the marriage, he has zero tolerance for insults of such calibre to his wife or children.”

“So it’s true then,” he said, pale. “I’m really married to Granger and have nine kids with her.”

“I can assure you that the marriage is a happy one and one based on love, even if it didn’t start like that.”

“And how did it start?”

She sighed. “I don’t have all the details, not even when it comes to our parents, but essentially, in summer 1996, father captured our bearer and his friends at the Ministry. Dad’s friends – Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville and Ginny – were imprisoned and used as leverage to get dad to comply with his demands. During the imprisonment, certain Death Eaters started to fancy dad’s friends so, father, to humour them, auctioned dad’s friends off to them. You decided to go with Hermione. What happened during your guard duty and her being a prisoner is a complete mystery to me, what I know is that you were adamant to keep her for yourself and that shortly after she completed her studies at Hogwarts you conceived your first child.”

“How old are you exactly?”

“Twenty.”

Barty’s eyes widened. “So that means that my Lord and Potter have been married for over twenty years?” he gaped.

“Aha,” she confirmed, grinning. “In a month’s time, they’ll be celebrating their twenty-first anniversary, because they married on dad’s sixteenth birthday and I was most likely conceived on their wedding night or during their honeymoon, because I was born in the first nine months of their marriage, on 26 April 1997, which makes me a Taurus.”

“And how is it that we ended up having more kids than your parents, if your parents started before Hermione and me?” he wondered, confused.

“Because you have two sets of twins – twin girls and twin boys,” she said. “And also, because our parents had a break from children after dad lost our brother James Sirius in one of the assassination attempts when I was six or seven years old. It devastated them, especially our dad, who was too afraid to conceive again for the longest time. In the end, they couldn’t not have more children so they ended up having three more in a span of eight years.”

“What about the others? Who did they end up with?” he inquired, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Luna ended marrying Rodolphus Lestrange, Ginny married Rabastan Lestrange, Ron was given to Draco Malfoy and Neville to Fenrir Greyback, who later turned him into a werewolf as well.”

“What about Bellatrix?” he wondered. “How did Rodolphus marry Luna, if he’s already married to Bellatrix?”

“In our dimension, that woman has been dead for over two decades.”

“What happened?”

“As I understand it, our father killed her, when she tried to harm our dad, and to make up for the loss, he let Rodolphus pick someone to marry and have kids with, and he chose Luna.”

“Burgers!” yelled Iphigenia and Lana as they stormed into the dining room, dragging Voldemort by the hands. Shortly after, Salazar and Catriona waddled in as well, still half-asleep but awake enough to eat burgers for breakfast.

“Are there any chips?” asked Salazar, taking a seat next to Voldemort.

“No, there aren’t, but I can make some if you really want them.”

“Yes, please.”

“Anyone else wants chips?” All her siblings rose their hands. “Of course, I should have known it would be like that,” she mumbled to herself and handed Alexander to Salazar. “Feed him for me in the meantime,” she instructed.

“Voldemort,” she addressed him in the middle of peeling and slicing the potatoes into thin strips. The man gave her an odd look. “Do you want chips with your burgers?”

“No,” he answered curtly.

“And how many burgers do you want? One or two?”

“One will be enough.”

She prepared the burger and placed it before him. “Here you go,” she said.

“What about a fork and a knife?”

“We don’t use knives and forks to eat burgers, Voldemort. We use hands.”

He frowned at the name again. “Why do you call me like that?”

“Because that’s the name you use,” she deadpanned.

“Why don’t you call me father?”

“Because you’re _not_ our father.”

“That may be so, technically speaking, but while you’re here, under this roof,” he said gravely, “you’re going to treat and refer to me as such. With all the respect that comes with it. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes … _father_ ,” she answered with a tight smile and went back to making chips.

“Also, I want to know everything there is to know about you six,” he declared, his expression determined.

She sneered. “Really? It might take us days, weeks, to tell you everything there is to know about us, are you sure that you can fit us into your tight schedule?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

He frowned. “You may talk to your father in that tone if he allows it, but you will not take that tone with me, young lady,” he warned. “Either you dial down on that attitude and sarcasm, or I’ll spank you.”

Delphini couldn’t believe her ears. The rest of her siblings were also flabbergasted.

“As for your question, yes, I _can_ fit you into my schedule. If I wasn’t able to, I wouldn’t have suggested the idea in the first place, would I?”

“No, father.”

He nodded, pleased with her tone and her form of address. “Now, tell me about yourselves: dates of birth, zodiac signs, hobbies, talents, Hogwarts Houses, grades, career ambitions, relationships … _everything_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort has activated Papa mode overnight. 😍 Poor Harry and Tom though from the other dimension. They are suffering because their children aren't there. 😥 And it's going to be a long wait and journey to get their kids back.


	7. A Family Morning Meal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort has breakfast with his counterpart's children and learns a lot about them.

_Riddle Manor II_

_1 July 1995, 8:20_

Waking up to his two younger daughters calling him _‘papa’_ and pulling him out of bed to drag him to the dining room for breakfast was a strange, but far from unpleasant, occurrence, if the warmth and the flutter inside his chest were any indication. It also consolidated the fact that he hadn’t imagined or dreamt the previous evening. There were really children in his house and they were his.

His and Potter’s, now Riddle, apparently. Merlin, how he hated that surname!

While the prospect of fatherhood was foreign to him and frightened him, he had made up his mind to give it a try. He would start by taking care of his counterpart’s children and making sure that they were fed and safe. Then, he would spend some time with them and get to know them, because he knew next to nothing about them, beyond the obvious and the snippets they let slip casually about themselves and each other.

Besides, he was curious to learn about their family life. Perhaps knowing his children and the other Voldemort and Harry’s relationship would help him understand how a union between somebody that was destined to vanquish him and himself could lead to a life full of love and happiness, with children included.

Imagine his displeasure then, when his eldest daughter called him by his name instead of father … twice. He could let it slide once, but not twice. She even had the audacity to sneer at him, make caustic sarcastic remarks to him and about him. He didn’t appreciate it … not one bit, and he let her know it.

How his counterpart could allow or tolerate such tone and language against him was beyond him, but he wouldn’t allow disrespect against his person. He was their father. He might not have conceived them; technically speaking, but that didn’t make him any less of a father to them, did it?

He picked up his burger and began eating it with his hands, waiting for them to start talking about themselves.

Lana raised her arm far into the air. “Me, papa! Me!” she volunteered eagerly. “I’ll start!” She inhaled deeply to get as much air as possible before continuing. “I was born on 10 August 2009. I’m almost eight years old and I’m a Leo, like daddy. I’m loud and I drive everyone crazy with my ADHD.”

“ADHD? What’s that?”

“Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD for short, is a mental disorder that causes above-normal levels of hyperactive and impulsive behaviours,” supplied Delphini. “It basically means that our dearest Lana has no sense of moderation or danger, she can’t sit still for more than five minutes, gets incredibly frustrated really fast and says whatever comes to her mind without any sort of filter in the bluntest possible way. She also has problems with following instructions, planning things, and focussing on a particular task, which subsequently means that she often starts something, but is unable to finish it on her own, especially if she encounters a problem.”

“I also have dyslexia,” she added happily.

“And what’s that?” he asked her.

“It’s when you can’t read well, because letters swim on the page and get all mixed up and you see nothing but nonsense. I also have trouble writing correctly because of it.”

His eyes widened. “I see.”

“I also go to school,” she continued her enthusiastic and energetic narration, while rocking back and forth in her chair. He could definitely see what Delphini meant by hyperactivity and restlessness. “I’m going to Voldemort’s Primary School for Magical Children, I just finished second grade and I’m going to graduate in three years. Then, I’m going to go to Hogwarts. Papa and daddy say I’ll be in Gryffindor because of my ADHD.”

“And your grades?” He doubted she was at the top of her class, since she couldn’t focus well, read well nor write well, but he hoped she wasn’t failing her classes either.

“Mediocre at best, but at least I’m passing all the subjects so far,” she said proudly. “We’ll see what happens at Hogwarts.”

He sighed. Thank, Merlin. At least that.

“If I make it there, that is,” she added with a bright smile. “Maybe I’ll become a dropout with how much I hate anything to do with school.”

Voldemort’s heart stopped beating for a split second with that declaration. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I hate reading, I hate writing, I hate studying, because it makes my head hurt and I don’t like being in pain. The only thing that I like about school is PE, and maybe Maths. I’m relatively good with numbers.”

Voldemort gaped, stunned and speechless, at Lana. That was a first for him, hearing that one of his offspring hated school and learning on such a deep level, or that she was so bad at academics too, when he himself was practically a genius. After recovering from the shock, he cleared his throat and muttered, “I see. Well, as long as you don’t end up a complete idiot and failure, I suppose it’s fine if you don’t finish Hogwarts.”

“I also practice judo,” she continued enthusiastically. “I’ve been practicing it for two years, and I’m already competing and winning competitions in my category. I want to be a professional athlete, compete at the Olympics and the world championships and win them all, of course. I’m going to be the best judo master in the world and nobody will be able to defeat me until I retire. Then others can win,” she added as an afterthought.

“Really?”

“Aha.” She nodded vigorously, grinning widely.

He was impressed with and proud of her results so far as well as her relentless drive and ambition to dominate the competitive judo world scene, though he was confused by the choice of sport. It was obviously muggle. “Why judo?”

“Because papa and daddy said I needed an outlet for my excessive energy … and because I was getting into a lot of fights with the other children when I was younger.”

“It’s that the only reason?” he insisted. “You could have chosen to become a professional duellist.”

She grinned mischievously and shook her head. “Duelling is boring.”

“Then what sets judo apart from duelling for you?”

“Guess.”

“I have no idea.”

“Because I like grabbing people by their clothes and throwing them around and onto the ground,” she said it as if it was obvious and he burst into a hearty laughter.

She was definitely his daughter, all right.

Next was Iphigenia. “Um, I’m four years old. I was born on 3 June 2013. I’m a Gemini and I really like cats. I can turn into a cat whenever I want.”

She transformed to demonstrate her claim. In Iphigenia’s stead was a small black, fluffy kitten with one red and one green eye, mewling gently.

“How?” He doubted she was an animagus.

She transformed back into her human form. “I snuck into Sister Delphi’s lab and drank a potion.”

“And when did that happen?” he asked, horrified by the fact that his youngest daughter was consuming unknown substances. At least she hadn’t drunk anything hazardous, had she?

“A week ago,” answered Delphini. “It was an animal shifter potion.”

“And what does that mean for your sister? Besides her being able to transform at will, of course.”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed her extra appendages when in human form, which are the remnants of her animal transformation. Her senses have also greatly improved and once she reaches sexual maturity she’ll start experiencing monthly heats.”

At his gobsmacked expression, she laughed. “That’s the kind of face dad made too when I told him about it, but don’t worry, I still have eight year to develop something that will suppress her heats, so that she doesn’t feel like having sex at twelve.”

“Do you go to school?” he inquired.

“No,” Iphigenia shook her head. “I’m at home with daddy and Alex, helping him around the house.”

“And what do you do to help him?”

“I help him pick up clothes, dry the dishes, cook and clean.”

He turned to Delphini. “Your dad is a stay-at-home dad? He doesn’t work?”

“Yes, he’s a stay-at-home dad and, no, he doesn’t work, but he is quite happy with the arrangement, because it lets him look after us and his husband,” she said brightly. “The only work he does – if you could even call it that – is attend formal parties with father from time to time, but he really hates those. The only reason he suffers through them is father.”

He tried to imagine Potter as a househusband and the image of him with an apron, cooking and cleaning, while carrying their children as babies in a sling or being heavily pregnant looked both incredibly absurd and incredibly appealing at the same time. Definitely a much better alternative for the brat than being an Auror. Perhaps teaching would suit him too, but he preferred him at home, with the kids and his husband, looking after and protecting their home.

“What about your father?”

“He’s a workaholic,” Delphini said bluntly, placing the bowl of chips on the table. “Just like how Lana has no sense of moderation when it comes to her behaviour, father has no sense of moderation when it comes to work.” She sat down and began eating her burgers. “Seriously, it’s constantly work, work and more work. He can’t even have a decent meal or a normal night’s sleep anymore without work getting in the way. I’m surprised he hasn’t collapsed yet from all the stress and exhaustion.”

Voldemort listened to Delphini’s agitated ramblings with rapt attention.

“And do you know what the worst part of all is?”

He shook his head.

“That most people don’t even appreciate him and the things he’s done for the British wizarding community. Sure, he’s no saint. He’s done horrible things to people, but he really tries his best as a ruler and they don’t appreciate his efforts to make things work nor all the time he spends working instead of spending that time with his family. I swear; there hasn’t been a single peaceful year for the past twenty years. There’s always something. It’s either assassination attempts, kidnappings, riots, protests, or general discontent, because the idiots are never fucking satisfied. My father offers them a finger and they want the whole arm. When he offers the arm, they want the other arm as well and both legs too. Greedy, unsatisfied, ungrateful motherfuckers,” she growled.

“Motherfuckers!” echoed Lana infuriated as well.

“Watch your language,” chastised Voldemort, but lacked any sort of bite, because he was too busy processing Delphini’s words. Being unappreciated even as an Emperor rang eerily true.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t just given up on trying to make things work and said, ‘Fuck this, I’m out, because this shit is not worth my nerves, my health nor neglecting my family’.”

She was already on her second burger.

“I gather you don’t like your father working so much,” he remarked.

“We _abhor_ it,” corrected Delphini, her mouth full. She swallowed. “If we had our way, we would have tied him to the bed and left him there until further notice.”

“Or we could knock him out with a sleeping pill and take a bit of his blood to modify the wards in such a way that he won’t be able to leave the estate or apparate away,” added Salazar matter-of-factly.

A piece of burger was stuck in Voldemort’s windpipe and he began to choke.

“Papa!” Lana and Iphigenia exclaimed and hurried to him. Salazar reached out toward him and slapped him between the shoulder blades a few times.

“Thank you,” he croaked when his throat cleared.

“You’re welcome,” Salazar said and went back to his burger and chips.

“What about you, Catriona?” he rasped, clearing his throat.

“Well, I’m fourteen, but I’ll be fifteen on 30 August, because I was born in 2002. I’m a Virgo and a squib. I attend Voldemort’s Institute for Squibs. I like to dance and sing. I compete in solo hip hop competitions and ballroom dancing, with Salazar as my dancing partner.”

“And are you successful in what you do?”

“Yes, I’ve won many gold medals and cups, but it doesn’t really mean anything if father isn’t there to see me win,” she concluded crestfallen.

“Me too,” interjected Lana. “I’ve also won lots of gold medals and cups, but I would have liked winning more if papa stayed long enough to see me win first place.” She looked dejected.

Voldemort didn’t know what to say. There was a pang of … something in his chest. Was it guilt?

Heavy silence fell upon them.

Barty cleared his throat. “And what is it like … going to a squib school?”

“It’s okay,” Catriona shrugged. “It’s a normal school, we just don’t do magic, but we still learn about it. We learn about magical customs, traditions, plants, animals, spells, potions, history, rituals, even art.”

“So, it’s a primarily theoretical approach?”

“Aha.”

“Interesting.”

“And your grades?” asked Voldemort.

“They’re good.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m one of the top students in my class.”

“Then say so,” he said sternly, “there’s no need to undermine or degrade your achievements to be humble, because you’re doing yourself a disservice. Just like you shouldn’t over-exaggerate things to make yourself seem something you aren’t.”

“Yes, papa.”

“And is it a boarding school? How do you travel?” asked Barty, genuinely interested in the concept of a squib school.

“I don’t board, just like Hogwarts is no longer a boarding school,” explained Catriona. “As for how I travel, I either take the bus, the train, or my parents side-apparate me to school and back.”

“If it’s no longer a boarding school, do you still have Hogwarts Houses?” inquired Barty.

“Yes,” said Salazar, eating chips, “there are still the traditional four Hogwarts Houses, just like there are still the Quidditch Cup, the House Cup and the House Point system.”

“And what was that creature, possessing you last night?” Voldemort inquired Catriona.

“Ask Delphini. I merely agreed to bond with the symbiont, because she was nagging me about it.”

He turned to Delphini.

“It’s an entity that requires a host to be alive. In turn, they grant their host incredible powers, such as incredible regenerating ability, and keep them safe from physical and magical harm,” narrated Delphini. “My fiancé…”

“What?” Voldemort interjected, baffled. “You’re engaged to be married?”

“Yes,” she deadpanned, “I’ll tell you all about it later, right now, I’m explaining the relationship between Cathy and the symbiont.” She cleared her throat. “As I was saying, my fiancé, Ethan, came across one in his forest about six months ago and gave it to me as a courting gift. I figured that, since it’s a symbiont and not a parasite, it would benefit Catriona, because she’s a squib and can’t really protect herself from magical and non-magical attacks.”

Catriona’s hand went up to the necklace around her neck and squeezed it. “The talisman papa gave me protects me just fine.”

“From magical attacks, but not from physical attacks,” retorted Delphini.

“You mentioned assassination attempts and kidnappings.”

“Yes. They happen every so often and that is why I wanted Catriona to bond with it to have protection in case somebody tried something nasty with her. I didn’t want her to go through what Lana and I went through.”

His eyes narrowed. “And what did you go through?” he inquired shrewdly.

“We were kidnapped.”

“Yes, by bad men!” exclaimed Lana. “They wanted to sell me to perverts!”

“When did that happen?” he asked, voice hard and a deep frown on his face.

“Two years ago!” exclaimed Lana.

“When I was five,” replied Delphini.

“Did the bad men do anything bad to you?”

“Yes, they hit me when I kicked, scratched and bit one,” said Lana, upset.

“Where did they hit you?”

“Here,” she pointed to her left eye with her index finger, “I had a purple eye,” she whined, and he felt rage well up within him at the idea of Lana being hurt. “Papa was so mad with the bad men that he made them go BOOM!” She made an exploding gesture with her arms. “And there was blood everywhere and pieces of skin and bones all over the place,” she narrated.

“Good,” Voldemort said, satisfied, because the only thing they deserved besides being reduced to such small pieces was torture of the worst kind. He turned to Delphini. “And you? Were you hurt when you were kidnapped?”

“No, I don’t think so, but my memory is hazy, because they kept me sedated. I was barely aware of what was happening and I don’t really know what the purpose of it was. What I know is that I was terrified and that I had nightmares long after the ordeal. I still have nightmares of somebody stalking me or kidnapping me sometimes,” she narrated, her expression distant, lost in memories.

“Is that why you started experimenting on yourself?”

She nodded. “I hated the feeling of helplessness, of being at somebody else’s mercy like that. When it got to the point of me going into a fight or flight mode at the slightest rustle of the leaves or the creaking of the floorboards, because I thought somebody was in the house trying to get to me, I knew I couldn’t keep living like that.” She sneered self-deprecatingly. “If you can even call being paranoid and terrified of others every day of your life living.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to your parents?”

A melancholic smile graced her lips. “When you have a father whose list of problems is probably longer than the longest river in existence, you certainly don’t want to be another problem in his life. Therefore, I kept quiet about my nightmares, about my fears and I decided to deal with all of them on my own.”

“But now, Sister Delphi is super strong,” said Iphigenia to Voldemort. “She can turn into a big dragon that breathes fire … like papa.” She grinned happily.

“Your father is an animagus?” he asked them, not expecting his counterpart to have mastered that bit of magic and that his animal form ended up being a massive, fire-breathing dragon. After all, how would he carry out his duties if he had to keep a mandrake leave under his tongue for a month uninterruptedly? Not to mention how would he eat, drink, sleep … kiss Potter, without accidentally swallowing the mandrake leaf and having to start the process all over again?

“Aha,” nodded Lana. She spread her arms wide apart. “He’s huge,” she emphasised, “bigger than our house!”

“Can you turn into a dragon like papa?” wanted to know Iphigenia.

“No,” he deadpanned, “I can’t.”

The girl’s cat ears sagged a bit, as disappointment spread across her face. “I thought you were like papa,” she said. “That you could do the same things like papa.”

“While we certainly have a lot in common, I’m sure there are a lot of things that make us different too,” he said.

“But you’re still papa?” concluded Iphigenia with a hopeful voice and look.

He found himself smiling. “Yes. I’m still papa,” he said gently.

The girl smiled brightly, as did Lana, and both went up to hug him, their breakfast forgotten.

He hugged them back.

A minute went by before they let go of him and returned to their seats to finish their burgers and chips. He looked at Delphini, who had just finished eating her fourth burger. “It’s your turn to tell me about yourself, Delphini,” he said.

“What else is there to know that you don’t know already?” she sighed, raking her brain for things to say. “I’m a Taurus, born on 26 April 1997, which makes me twenty years old. I’m marrying Ethan this autumn and, despite us being engaged for over a year now, we haven’t gone past heavy snogging, petting and him marking me, so I’m still a virgin. When I went to Hogwarts, I was sorted into Ravenclaw and I graduated a few years back with honours. Then, right after graduating, I worked as an assistant librarian at Hogwarts for a year. I quit my job to dedicate myself to more scientific and magical research, during which I met my fiancé Ethan, who is a demon and the Lord of the Forest, and as his bride, I recently started my elemental manipulation training,” she concluded in a light-hearted tone.

He held up his hand, eyes closed. There was so much information he needed to unpack and process. Her impending marriage to a forest shadow _demon_ , her age, her being a Ravenclaw and not a Slytherin, despite being _just_ like him, and her elemental manipulation ability. He would start with the most glaring one.

“A forest shadow demon? You are marrying a _demon_?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” she rolled her eyes.

“Why a demon?”

“Because I can’t be with a human. I’m deadly, remember? Besides, what do you have against Ethan? Our father is against him, you seem against him and you haven’t even met him … like what in the actual fuck?” she snapped angrily. “I know he is unconventional husband material, but I’m also unconventional wife material. I love him, he loves me; what else do you want from him?”

“First, calm yourself down and watch your tone,” he warned; his face a stone hard mask. “Second, I am not against your future husband per se, just flabbergasted to learn about it. I’m sure my counterpart doesn’t hate him either, perhaps he’s peeved about something else.”

She pouted, crossed her arms and slumped in her chair. “Sorry for my outburst,” she grumbled. “I just get defensive when it comes to my relationship with Ethan. He’s my mate and the future father of my children.”

“Understandable, however, don’t you think you’re a bit young for marriage, for kids?”

She snorted. “Given that dad married father on his sixteenth birthday and then had me while he was still sixteen, I think that at twenty, I’m old enough for marriage and children, because I refuse to wait until I’m seventy – like you, father – to have a family. Why postpone for the sake of postponing, when I have found the man of my life?”

He knew her words made sense, but that didn’t mean that the idea of her marrying someone, having sex and birthing children was a pleasant thought for him to have. In fact, it sickened him. That was probably what was happening to his counterpart as well. He was most likely experiencing physical illness that came from simply imagining and knowing that, inevitably, Delphini was going to be intimate with someone.

He changed the subject of the conversation.

“What about elemental manipulation? What is that?”

“It’s the ability to manipulate elements of nature to your will. You know, the four main ones: air, earth, fire and water, and all the derived elements, such as ice, metal, mud, lightning, spirit … even blood.”

“Blood? Is that what you did yesterday to make Lana come to you? You manipulated her blood?”

“Yes, I took control of her through every single water particle in her body. After all, humans are mostly made of water,” she smirked. “I could demonstrate it for you, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you. I think I’ll pass,” he retorted dryly, when he saw her raise her hand and point her fingers in his direction.

She giggled. “I promise not to crush any organs or damage you beyond repair,” she flashed her teeth dangerously.

He paled, but his voice didn’t waver, when he told her, “I said no demonstration. Especially if you intend to perform it on me.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “I won’t do it. However, if you must compare it to something, blood manipulation is like having the Imperius, the Cruciatus and the Killing Curse all mixed into one little package, because you can make people do whatever you want while fully conscious of their actions, you can torture them into insanity or you can kill them by crushing them from the inside.”

Lana’s remark about his counterpart making her kidnappers explode made him wonder if he was capable of elemental manipulation as well. “Can your father also manipulate the elements?”

“No,” Delphini deadpanned, “but not because he wouldn’t be able to do it if he wanted, but because he has no patience for yoga and meditation, which are key ingredients in becoming aware of the nature and being in sync with it, and that is the basis for elemental manipulation,” she explained.

“And why have you decided to pursue elemental manipulation?”

“Because of Ethan,” she said. “Since he’s the Lord of the Forest, as his bride and future Lady of the Forest, I want to help him look after our territory, protect it from disease and fire, and defend it from any invaders.”

“Makes sense,” he remarked, taking another bite. What didn’t make sense was how his counterpart found enough patience for Animagus transformation, but didn’t have enough of it to pursue elemental manipulation, which was a far more useful branch of magic than Animagus transformation in his opinion. 

Delphini rose and went to wash her plate.

“What about you, Salazar?” he addressed his eldest son.

“Uh, I was born on 28 January 2000. I’m seventeen years old and I’m an Aquarius.”

“Seventeen? Then you have graduated from Hogwarts?”

“Technically not yet, because I’m still waiting for my N.E.W.T. results, but I think I’ll pass all my subjects with Outstanding … just not sure if they will all be perfect scores, something father has always been very set on from the beginning.”

“In what House were you?”

“Slytherin.”

“And what do you like to do?”

“I like playing muggle videogames,” he said.

Voldemort felt his eye twitch. “And your father lets you play muggle games?”

His son nodded. “It took him years to allow muggle technology inside his house, but now he doesn’t mind it.”

“And besides muggle games, what else are you good at?”

Salazar seemed reluctant to answer and busied himself with readjusting his brother on his lap and wiping his mouth. Alexander didn’t appreciate having a napkin against his mouth, judging from the grimace and sounds of protest he let out.

“I …” he swallowed, “I’m good at drawing and painting, but I don’t do that often and I don’t let others see my work.”

He narrowed his eyes, intrigued. “Why is that? Why would you hide your artwork? Are you ashamed of it?”

“More like afraid of it and what it can do to others,” corrected Salazar.

That intrigued him even further. “What do you mean?” he pressed, determined to get to the bottom of it.

Salazar sighed. “My art is cursed. It makes weak-minded and weak-willed people go insane.”

Voldemort’s eyes widened. “Truly?”

“Truly,” he snapped. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But I do,” countered Voldemort with authority. “I want to know about you, Salazar, and you are not going to deny me that.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “What would you like to know?”

“What do you mean when you say that people go insane?”

“They start acting weird, screaming, with terror contorting their features … as if they’re seeing and hearing something awful inside their heads. That usually ends with them mutilating or killing themselves or trying to kill and mutilate others,” he explained. “Some even start worshipping my paintings, as if they were images of some ancient, long-forgotten gods, and speaking in some sort of dead, ancient demonic language, as if they were _possessed_ by … _something_.”

Silence reigned in the dining room, as Voldemort tried to process the information and the others were busy finishing their burgers and chips.

“And how would you describe your art, Salazar? What kind of motifs do you paint?” he asked.

“Dark, gruesome, grotesque, macabre, twisted,” he returned. “The characters I paint could pass as some sort of deities that I have created from my own mythos, like the Dream Devourer, the Ancient One, the Soul Reaper or the Mind Breaker.”

“Would you show some of it to me?”

“No,” said Salazar, “I don’t want to risk you losing it and besides, I don’t have my sketchbook here with me.”

He was dissatisfied with his own son refusing to show his art to him, his father. That could only mean one thing. “Are you implying I’m weak-minded and weak-willed?” he asked lowly, threating.

“No, but you are unstable because of your split soul,” countered Salazar.

“Have you denied your own father access to your work as well then?”

“No, because his soul and mind are stable and mostly whole.”

Hold on … “What do you mean mostly whole? What of the horcruxes? I thought you said he had seven.”

“Our father has absorbed all horcruxes, except for the soul piece inside our dad,” said Salazar. “Of course, just absorbing doesn’t do much, since the soul still resembles a shattered vase held together by spell-o-tape, but apparently the healing process happened naturally over time because of dad and us, until one day he woke up and there were no snake features left in him.”

The revelation perplexed him; however, he had a hard time deciding what perplexed him more: the fact that his counterpart would reabsorb his soul or the fact that it was Potter and their children who ultimately ended up restoring it. How was that even possible?

“We healed papa’s hurt soul,” announced Iphigenia enthusiastically. “We are superheroes. I’m Captain Kitty.”

He looked dumbfounded at his youngest daughter. “How wonderful,” he deadpanned, focusing on his line of interrogation of Salazar and his work.

“Fine,” he conceded disgruntled. “Don’t show it to me. However, I suppose you can tell me where you get inspiration for such gruesome imagery.”

“My dreams,” shrugged Salazar. “My thoughts.”

Voldemort’s eyebrow arched. Not that it surprised him to hear that a son of his would have dark and twisted subconscious inclinations, what surprised him was that Salazar, who grew up loved unlike him, would have them. “And … do you often have such dark thoughts?”

Salazar looked uncomfortable with the question and reached for his wrists. He immediately narrowed his eyes.

“Quite often,” replied his son, who was apparently fond of wearing long-sleeved hooded shirts in the middle of summer heat.

“Aren’t you hot in that shirt?” he asked shrewdly.

Salazar tensed at the question and pulled the sleeves down over his palms. “Not at all.”

“What are you trying to hide, Salazar?” he insisted, his voice low and hard.

“Nothing,” he snapped and hid his hands under the table.

Voldemort reached for one of his wrists and pulled it harshly towards him, despite Salazar’s protests, peeling back the sleeve to reveal a faint scar there.

He stared, unable to form words at the cold feeling running down his spine. There was only one reason Salazar would have a scar on his wrist and he didn’t know what to think of the fact that his own flesh and blood had attempted to forfeit his own life.

“When did it happen?” he asked.

Salazar managed to wrench his wrist free and covered the scar again with the fabric of his hooded shirt. “Two months ago,” he murmured.

“Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about that right now. Not with Iphigenia and Lana present.”

He nodded. “Very well,” he agreed. “Then we’ll talk about it after breakfast in my study.” He turned to Alexander and reached for him to place him on his lap. “And what do you tell me about yourself, Alexander?” he asked the toddler.

“Papa and daddy like very much. Chomp, chomp fingers,” articulated the toddler proudly; making a biting gesture with his shark teeth and letting out sounds usually produced during meals.

He raised an eyebrow, confused by what he thought his toddler son was trying to communicate to him. He looked at Delphini. “Is Alexander trying to tell me that he loves his parents very much and that he bites off fingers?”

Delphini grinned. “Congratulations, father, you have mastered baby language to perfection, because that’s exactly what Alex is trying to tell you.”

He was horrified. “You let him put all that filth inside his mouth?” he said, upset. “What if he gets an indigestion?” He turned to Alexander, a serious expression on his face. “Listen to me, son. No more biting people’s fingers off and putting them into your mouth. They are full of filth and germs and papa doesn’t want you to have an upset stomach or worse.”

The toddler looked at him in confusion. “Alex chomp mean fingers only,” he said in all his child innocence.

“Mean fingers are the filthiest,” he insisted sternly. “I mean it, Alexander. No more chomping people’s fingers and putting them into your mouth.”

The toddler made a face and started making protesting sounds.

“When was he born?” he asked Delphini, gently rocking the toddler to stop him from fussing.

“On 6 April 2016, therefore, he’s an Aries and that makes him fifteen months old.”

Then, somebody knocked. “I’ll get it!” volunteered Lana, shoving a handful of chips into her mouth, before racing off to open the door. With Alexander in his arms, he stood up and followed her.

“Mr Malfoy!” Lana exclaimed. “What a surprise! What are you doing here?”

“I came to deliver some money to your father,” he heard the blond say in a drawl.

“Why?” Lana inquired curiously. “Have you borrowed my papa’s money and now you have to pay off your debt to him?”

“Not exactly, Lana,” he said, placing one of his hands on Lana’s shoulder protectively and looking impassively at Lucius. “However, he has a debt to pay and money seemed a much better option than pain.” He glowered at the man.

Lucius paled and swallowed hard. Lana seemed to have understood his meaning, for she gasped and said, “I see. Mr Malfoy made you angry again, typical,” she shook her head. “I’m glad that Uncle Draco has more sense than his papa.”

Lucius’ eye twitched, but refrained from commenting. “Here are the twenty pounds you asked for, my Lord,” he said all business-like instead, handing over the twenty-pound banknote.

Delphini and the rest of his children joined them.

“Catriona, Salazar, here are the twenty pounds you wanted for your battery chargers,” he said, handing the note to them.

“What about money for Alexander’s diapers and our clothes? You don’t expect us to have the same clothes on us for the next month, do you?” Delphini asked affronted. “And what about the ingredients for my potion?”

“I didn’t think of that honestly,” he admitted and turned to Lucius again. “New orders, Lucius. Convert more money and bring six hundred pounds in cash by this afternoon. Then, I expect you to finance any potion ingredient I ask of you regardless of their price, is that clear?”

Lucius looked ready to faint. “Yes, my Lord.”

“Good, because that’s the least you can do after enabling the destruction of my diary,” he snarled. “It’s either that or torture until the end of your days.”

With that, Lucius left and Lana stood at the door waving at him. “Bye, bye, Mr Malfoy!” When he didn’t acknowledge her goodbye, she huffed indignantly and said, “How rude! He didn’t even say bye to us. Papa would have his head for his abysmal manners and he calls himself a well-bred Pureblood. More like an unmannered brute.”

He laughed heartily at Lana’s assessment of Lucius’ manners, or the lack of them.

“Agreed, Lana,” he sighed, ruffling her hair softly. “He’s a brute who has no sense of decorum and good manners, and he’s also incompetent.”

She looked up at him with a frown. “What’s incompetent?”

“It means that Lucius is unable to do anything I tell him to do well,” he explained.

She gasped as understanding dawned on her. “I get it now. So, that’s what papa meant every time he called him an incompetent idiot. Not only can’t Lucius do anything papa asks him to do well, he’s also stupid.”

Another bout of laughter left Voldemort’s lips. He already adored his children … Lana especially.

He caught Salazar and Catriona getting ready to leave the house with the corner of his eye. “Where do you two think are going?” he called after them.

“To buy chargers.”

“What did I say yesterday?” he said. “You’re not allowed to go alone. Wait until Lucius returns with more money and then we’ll go shopping for clothes, diapers and chargers together.” He pointed a clawed finger at Salazar. “And you, son,” he said menacingly. “You and I have a talk pending in my study about those scars on your wrists and the incident that led to them.”

Salazar looked at the floor, ashamed. “Yes, father.”

A sudden stench filled the air and Voldemort glanced at Alexander, lifted him, smelled his nether regions and gagged. “Delphini,” he called, grimacing and coughing, keeping him at arm’s length away from himself, and handed the toddler over to her. “Go change your brother’s diaper from whichever material you have improvised so far before I choke to death due to this horrible stench.”

Delphini took over, barely reacting to the unbearable smell. “Come, Alex, let’s go change your diaper,” she told the toddler and carried him upstairs, while Voldemort and Salazar went to the man’s study.

…

From the distance, Barty surveyed the scene before him in awe. Seeing his Lord genuinely smile and laugh for the first time in his life was enough for him to make a decision. He would bring his Lord the Potter boy, and hope for them to fall in love, get married, and have kids.

Even though he still had difficulty imagining his Lord and Potter as a couple, if having children with the boy would make his Lord happy, then he would be the one to make it happen.

“Uncle Barty!” Lana’s voice brought him back to the present. “Let’s play something.”

“Like what?”

“Cat’s cradle!” exclaimed Iphigenia.

“And how do you play that?” he asked, never having heard of such a game before and the two girls were eager to tell him and show him all about the different string games and figures one could do. When his Lord and the Young Lord returned from the study, he was already an expert in making the witch’s broom, the spider web, and the cup and the saucer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Lucius (not) 😋 I'm afraid it's his punishment for not protecting the Diary like he should, at least he should be happy he's not getting tortured with the Cruciatus. 
> 
> Again, Lana's bluntness just shines like a bright ray of sunshine in the chapter and getting Voldemort to laugh genuinely, but in this one every child got to shine in their own way. 😄 Voldemort has a lot of things to process after being bombarded with information, but he'll manage. He's the Dark Lord, after all (for now, at least 😋).
> 
> Also, good luck with capturing Harry. You'll need it. 😆


	8. Harry Potter meets Harry Riddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort and Salazar talk, Salazar and Catriona remember that this is 1995 and thus no USB yet, and Harry has a small accident with some potions that transports him to another dimension.

_12 Grimmauld Place II_

_1 July 1995, 8:00_

Despite his grogginess and lack of sleep the following morning, Harry could tell something changed, when both Mrs Weasley and his godfather were adamant not to let him and Ron take a walk to the nearest park at all.

He expected such a response from Ron’s mother, but not his godfather. It would seem that what Snape told them yesterday about Voldemort wanting to get his hands on him, must have really affected them.

“Just a short ten-minute walk,” pleaded Ron,” we won’t stray at all.”

“Which part of ‘you aren’t allowed to go outside’ didn’t you understand, Ronald Weasley?” she said on the verge of losing her nerves. “Honestly. Eat up and go clean the sitting room, and if I hear you asking to go out again, I’m going to have you clean the attic as well.”

“Nothing, Harry,” sighed Ron as they were making their way towards the sitting room. “We’ll just have to use your Cloak of Invisibility and sneak out of the house in the dead of night. You’ll have to tell that to Voldemort in the letter you’re going to write to him,” he said matter-of-factly.

Harry gaped at his best friend. “You’re still on about that?”

“Of course. Didn’t I tell you I want to get to the truth behind this entire thing?”

Harry groaned. “I thought you were delirious,” he confessed. “I thought that it was just you rambling in the middle of the night, that you were pulling my leg.”

“Well, I’m serious. You are going to write a letter to Voldemort and tell him to come pick you up on 4 July at half past midnight from the park. Meanwhile we have to get you something so that you can magically communicate with us that isn’t owl post, through which you will keep us informed of what is happening.”

Harry sent a blank stare his way. “No,” he said, resolute and walked ahead.

“Fine,” said Ron, “then I’ll write to Voldemort in your stead if you are so bloody shy to do it yourself.”

Harry whipped his head back, a dark scowl on his face. “Don’t you dare, Ron, do you hear me?”

“Then grow some balls and do it,” Ron countered.

“You’re impossible,” groaned Harry and decided to ignore his friend for the rest of the day.

Surprisingly, he was doing well. He concentrated on cleaning and then busied himself with his new discovery: a gold locket with an ‘S’ formed on the front from tiny emeralds, which he kept for himself around his neck. However, towards late afternoon, when they had finished cleaning, boredom crept in and crumbled his resolve when he agreed to Ron’s idea of playing hide-and-seek.

While Ron counted to one hundred, Harry and company split up and hid in different places of the large house. Harry, for example, decided to hide in the attic filled with dust, spider webs, old and broken furniture covered in cloth, remnants of a runic ritual circle, candles, old and dusty books, and potion bottles.

He hid next to the potions shelf, with the ritual circle behind him.

In hindsight, Harry realised it was a stupid idea to hide in such a sketchy place, but in the heat of the moment, he didn’t consider anything bad could happen while hiding from Ron. Until something jumped at his face, startling him.

He knocked over the potions shelf, which came crushing down on him. The glass bottles shattered all over him, covering him and the ritual circle in liquid that smelled like death itself.

His first thought was that he was going to die from poisoning. When the runes began glowing and the liquids began to melt the floor, Harry thought he was going to melt away as well, only to lose solid ground beneath him and fall through the hole.

He screamed.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_1 July 1995, 10:03_

“Sit,” he gestured toward the chair opposite his. Salazar sat down. “Talk,” he commanded, leaning on his desk. “Tell me what compelled you to attempt suicide.”

Salazar wrung his hands together, his eyes fixed on his lap, looking for words to speak. “I couldn’t take the pressure anymore,” he whispered. “Father wanted me to be just like him. He wanted me to be the best at everything, no failure allowed. He wanted me to succeed him. If I scored an Outstanding, but didn’t get one hundred percent, he would tell me it was not good enough; that I had to do better than that, because he knew I could do it. He had such high expectations and I felt smothered by all of it, like I could never live up to his vision of me no matter what I did, because while I look just like him, I am nothing like him. I –” his voice faltered as he swallowed thickly, blinking away the tears. “I couldn’t bear the thought of failing his expectations – even though they were impossible – and being a disappointment to him so … I snapped … I snuck a knife from the Great Hall, went to the school bathroom and cut my wrists open, hoping I would bleed to death before anyone found me.”

Voldemort didn’t dare say anything, because what did someone say to their child when they told them they wanted to die … because of them. That they were the reason they took a knife and slit their wrists.

“What happened after you … slit your wrists?” he spoke in a low whisper after a long and heavy silence.

“Myrtle found me and fetched the first professor she saw on the corridor,” narrated Salazar in a detached manner. “Then, the Headmistress called and informed my parents of the incident, they came, father was furious with me, we yelled at each other, I told him what I felt, he looked like he wanted to hit me for talking back at him, instead, we reconciled, but he threatened me with sedatives and a restraining jacket if I attempted suicide again.”

He never thought he would ever have Myrtle Warren to thank for saving the life of his son. It almost made her death seem like a blessing and the fact that she was bitter enough to stay behind as a toilet ghost at Hogwarts came in handy.

“What about your bearer and your sisters?” he asked. “How did they react?”

“Dad was distraught.” Salazar kept playing with the sleeves of his shirt. “My sisters too. None of them left me alone or out of their sight for a while, even at night, there was always someone sleeping next to me or just sleeping in my room. I felt awful for putting everyone through such an ordeal.”

“And before that incident … did you ever consider taking your life?”

Salazar snorted self-deprecatingly. “Plenty of times … I was tempted to do it plenty of times. Sometimes I would stare out of the window at school and imagine throwing myself out of it, but I never did it because I didn’t want to traumatise other students by seeing my mangled corpse lying on the ground. Sometimes I would stare at the medicine cabinet while brushing my teeth and consider overdosing myself with pills or potions, but I didn’t do it, because I didn’t want any of my family to find me in the bathroom dead. It would have scarred my siblings for the rest of their lives if they saw me lifeless. Other times I would consider drowning myself in the bathtub or hanging myself from the ceiling. Again, I refrained for the same reasons as before.”

With each new method of death Salazar considered killing himself with over the years, Voldemort’s chest and stomach twisted painfully as pure dread clawed up his throat, squeezing it, making it impossible to breathe. To hear his own son talk like that, to see his own face and his own eyes staring blankly back at him, telling him about all the ways he wished to end his own life as if it was a simple weather discussion was haunting, unpleasant and terrifying.

“Instead,” Salazar continued blankly, “I tried to direct my suicidal thoughts to my art, only for it to turn out cursed because of my black thoughts.”

“You believe your cursed art is directly connected to your mental state?”

He shrugged. “What other explanation is there? Those beings I dream of, that I paint … they must be physical manifestations of my internal darkness and since I’m a wizard I gave them powers beyond the dream realm, beyond the canvas and they infect other people.”

“While plausible, it doesn’t really explain the ancient demonic language some seem to speak when in the presence of your creations. I believe there is more to it than simply you pouring yourself into your work. Also,” he added sternly, standing and walking up to Salazar, holding him by the head, making sure he was looking him in the eyes. “… I agree with your father. Keeping you sedated and restrained seems like a good option in case you attempt to kill yourself again, because no son of Voldemort will succumb to such weakness of the mind or will.”

Salazar swallowed thickly, blinking away the tears that resurfaced in his eyes.

“No son of Voldemort will take his own life, no matter how tempted you might feel, because you are no coward that runs away from problems. You are a warrior and warriors fight. Every day. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but what matters is that at the end of each day, you are ready to keep going the next day … and the next. Until your dying breath a hundred and fifty years from now. Do you hear me?”

Salazar broke into sobs. He nodded. “Yes, father,” he hiccoughed and Voldemort pulled his son forward, and wrapped his arms around him tightly. The boy burrowed his face into his chest and held onto him like a lifeline.

“Good boy,” he praised.

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_1 July 2017, 17:12_

Harry and Tom ended up spending the entire day in the living room, watching past memories of their children recorded on film. The intention was to make their absence less painful, but as both Harry and Tom realised … it only made them miss their children more.

Harry burst into tears on the sofa, in his husband’s arms. “The videos aren’t helping, Tom,” he sobbed. “I thought it would make the pain more bearable, but it only makes it worse. It only makes me miss them more.”

Tom pressed his lips to his consort’s temple and closed his eyes.

“I can’t even eat in peace, not knowing if they have eaten, if they are safe, if they have a place to sleep, if they are together.”

“I know, Harry. I miss them too and I wonder the same things as you, just as it pains me to see you distressed.”

“I can’t help it, Tom,” he held onto his husband. “They’re my children.”

Something crashed upstairs in the attic. Harry and Tom were immediately on alert.

“What was that?” asked Harry, pulling away from his husband.

“I don’t know,” answered Tom with a scowl, pulling out his wand and standing up, “but I don’t like uninvited guests who manage to bypass the Fidelius Charm.”

“Do you think it could be the kids?” he asked hopeful.

“I doubt it, Harry. It’s too soon and I doubt they have managed to find an alternative in less than twenty-four hours. Our daughter is a genius, but not that much of a genius.”

“I know, but if it’s not the kids, then who could it be?”

“Let’s find out.”

Together, they went upstairs, both clenching their wands in hands, ready to dispatch the intruder if the need arose, and the closer they got, the more something reeked.

“What the hell is this horrible stench?” complained Harry. “Did we leave something to rot in the attic without knowing that it smells like this?”

“Not that I recall,” returned Tom.

He certainly didn’t bring any corpses to their sanctuary, so it couldn’t be that. Perhaps they discarded some food and it went bad, but what food ended up smelling worse than Alexander’s diaper?

They were right at the door, Tom before Harry, both grimacing and pinching their noses to drown the gag-inducing scent. On three, they burst forth, wands at a ready, and came face-to-face with the source of the stench … a teenage Harry Potter, covered in some sort of liquid.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_1 July 1995, 14:32_

Soon after lunch, Lucius returned with additional six hundred pounds in cash and Voldemort gathered the Riddle children for a shopping trip. The plan was to disguise any external abnormalities with glamours and go to the nearest Department store to buy clothes, one pair of shoes, chargers, diapers and other miscellaneous baby things.

“Before we go,” he said to his children at the entrance, looking like a more mature version of his father, wearing a muggle business suit, “let’s repeat the rules of conduct in public.”

“We move as a group,” said Salazar.

“We don’t go off on our own,” said Catriona.

“Exactly. This especially holds true for you, Lana.” He addressed her. “Someone might kidnap you again. Iphigenia, you too.” He turned to his youngest daughter. “What else?”

“We do not run. We do not yell. We do not have temper tantrums to get something that we want but wasn’t on the shopping list,” supplied Delphini.

“That’s right. I don’t want to see any of you throwing yourselves on the floor or screaming for candy or other things on a selfish whim. We go there to buy something specific, if they don’t have what we’re there for, we don’t look for alternatives or replacements. Understood?”

“Yes,” the children chorused. He nodded, satisfied.

“Excellent. Then we’re ready to leave.”

They apparated in a deserted back alley near a shopping centre in Great Hangleton.

After ensuring that everyone apparated without getting lost or being splinched, they made their way inside the first clothes shop and began looking for things to wear.

The older children looked for clothes on their own, but always stayed in his line of sight, and when they wanted to try something on to see if it fit them, they always came to him to inform him about it so he always knew where they were and what they were doing. Meanwhile, he accompanied Lana, Iphigenia and Alexander, who was glued to his front in a makeshift baby sling, and helped them look for appropriate clothes.

Halfway through, a female shop assistant approached them, offering help, but Voldemort refused, because he was perfectly capable of shopping for clothes on his own, thank you very much, and if there was something he wasn’t sure about, he would just ask his older children, no need to involve any muggles.

After everyone had their own selection of clothes, they moved to the register, paid for the merchandise, left the shop, and moved onto the next one. By the time they reached the electronics shop, their last stop, they were all carrying – save for Alexander – at least two bags and a pack of diapers under their arms.

“Salazar, Catriona,” he addressed them, “go in, buy what you need, your siblings and I will wait for you here outside the shop.”

After spending the entire afternoon surrounded by muggles, buying muggle things for his children, he _really_ didn’t want to be surrounded by muggle technology as well.

“Okay,” said Salazar.

It ended up being less than five minutes and they returned empty-handed and with sour expressions. “What happened?” he asked them.

“They don’t have USB ports or chargers,” grumbled Salazar under his breath.

“We overlooked a small, but very crucial detail,” said Catriona.

“Which is?”

“That this is 1995 and that USB has not been invented yet,” she deadpanned.

…

_12 Grimmauld Place II_

_1 July 1995, 18:35_

“Dinner is ready!” Mrs Weasley called from the staircase, putting an end to the hide-and-seek.

Ron had successfully found Ginny, Hermione and Fred, but failed to find George and Harry.

“Where’s Harry?” their mother asked, when everyone but Harry showed up at the table.

Ron shrugged. “Probably still hiding. I reckon he hasn’t heard you calling. Do you want us to go look for him?”

“No, you five stay here and eat,” she said. “I’ll go look for him.”

On each floor, Mrs Weasley called out for Harry to get his attention, but nothing happened. When she reached the attic and there was nothing but silence and an unbearable stench, she grew concerned. “This is bad,” she said as she returned to the kitchen.

“What is it?” asked Sirius.

“I can’t find Harry,” she breathed, pale and horrified.

“What do you mean you can’t find him?”

“He’s not here,” she insisted. “I’ve been to every floor, called for him and there’s been nothing but silence and a horrible smell in the attic.”

Sirius turned to his animagus form and began sniffing the air, trying to pick up his godson’s scent from the myriad of other scents and follow it. It led him to the attic, where his godson’s scent trail disappeared, mixed with a death-like smell.

He inspected the attic and found the potions shelf overturned, glass shards on the floor, dried liquid smearing the chalk of the ritual circle, but there was no sign of Harry. Dread filled his stomach.

“And?” Molly asked him when she caught up to him. “Did you find him?”

“No,” he shook his head, his brow furrowed. “He’s gone.”

“Where has he gone to?” Molly insisted. “He couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s exactly what happened,” snapped Sirius. “Because there’s no trace of him. Nothing!”

Molly gaped, dumbfounded. “But how? What happened?”

“Apparently, he hid in the attic and, while he was hiding, he knocked over a shelf filled with dark and obscure potions, which covered him in liquid. There was also a ritual circle nearby and there was most likely some sort of an unexpected reaction that resulted in Harry’s disappearance.”

“So we don’t know what exactly happened, is that it? Just as we don’t know if there’s any way for him to return. For all we know he could be dead!” she cried, tears gathering in her eyes.

Sirius placed a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Let’s not jinx his fate, Molly,” he whispered. “We must believe that he’s alive and well.”

“What if it wasn’t a ritual gone wrong, Sirius? What if someone, somehow infiltrated the house without any of us noticing to kidnap Harry and take him to You-Know-Who?”

Sirius gulped, his stomach turned upside down just thinking Voldemort could have got his hands on his godson. “It’s a possibility,” he admitted, “but I didn’t pick up any other scent in the room, just Harry’s … although the stench makes it hard to discern.”

“They could have masked their scent. They probably know you’re an Animagus and that Remus is a werewolf and that you would smell them if they were here,” she protested.

“That is why I will inform Dumbledore about this. I hope that he’ll be able to tell us more about what happened, whether it was a ritual gone wrong or a kidnapping. In the meantime, don’t let anyone come here or move anything. We need to keep this untouched for inspection.”

Molly sniffed and wiped the tears away. She nodded and returned to the kitchen to inform the children of their friend’s disappearance, while Sirius floo called Dumbledore and informed him of the incident.

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_1 July 2017, 17:18_

At first, Harry was happy that he survived the fall and that whatever he was covered in hadn’t corroded his skin and burned him to death. He smelled as if he’d had a swim in a sewer rubbish pool and he felt sick because of it, but he was still alive, only in dire need of a fresh bath and lots of nicely-scented soap and shampoo.

Then, confusion settled in when he didn’t recognise his surroundings. It was an attic, but a different one. After a minute or two, his confusion turned to pure fear and dread as he heard muffled voices, voices he didn’t recognise, and footsteps getting nearer. He quickly looked for a place to hide, but found nothing.

The door burst open and two men pointed their wands at him. One of them looked like an older version of himself and the other … the other man looked like an older Tom Riddle.

The three men stared at each other – the strangers with confusion and Harry with fear – and then, Harry did the most sensible – or the most stupid – thing in that kind of a situation.

He fainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you didn't see this coming. 😎 And if you did, kudos to you. To those who were hoping for this Harry to get kidnapped by Barty, I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, but things have to happen like this. This Harry and Voldemort have to be separated physically by dimensions. I challenge you to guess why (if you like that sort of guesswork 😊) if you don't feel like analyzing, just strap in and enjoy the ride. I promise it will be a good one. 😘
> 
> On another note, what are your thoughts on what happened in the chapter? The talk between father and son, Voldemort getting ready for a shopping trip with the kids, Harry conveniently hiding in such a sketchy place that got him where it got him, and the meeting between this Harry and the other Harry and Tom? Next chapter will focus on the other dimension and the interactions between the three. It will be good, I can tell you that. 😉


	9. The other Tom and Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry learns a few things about the other Tom and Harry, and himself.

_Riddle Manor I_

_1 July 2017, 17:18_

The person who looked like a teenage version of his consort fainted where they stood.

“Restrain him, levitate him to the bathroom and clean him, clothes and all,” he ordered Harry. “I’ll go grab some Veritaserum.”

“What for?” questioned Harry.

“What else? To interrogate whomever this is. For all we know somebody could be polyjuicing as you.”

“When I was fourteen or fifteen,” Harry snorted sarcastically. “How would that even work?”

He scowled. “I don’t have a clue, but I’m not risking anything. Now do as I say,” he snarled and went to fetch the aforementioned Truth Serum. His husband sighed, but did as instructed.

…

When the spray of water hit him, he gasped, coughed, squeezed his eyes tightly shut and shielded his face with his hands, which he realised were tied together at the wrists. His ankles were tied as well.

“He’s awake, Tom,” somebody – a male – said.

“I can see that,” a cold, rich voice returned, sending shivers down Harry’s spine … or was it the blast of cold water.

“Be gentle,” said the other, warm and soothing.

“That depends on whether the boy will co-operate or if he’ll resist,” the older male returned indifferently.

‘ _They are going to torture me,_ ’ Harry thought terrified and he backed away, right into the wall. ‘ _I’m going to die._ ’ He pulled his restrained legs to his chest, his eyes blown wide, making himself as small as possible.

“Please,” he begged, shivering, staring at his older counterpart and a human-looking Voldemort, who was regarding him with an aloof expression. “Don’t hurt me. I don’t know what’s going on or where I am, please. I mean no harm.”

“That remains to be seen,” returned Voldemort – Tom – in a hard tone. “First drink this; clean yourself, and then, we’ll talk.”

He extended a glass of something towards him. Harry hesitated. What if it was poison? His hesitation displeased Tom – Voldemort. “Drink it or I’m going to shove it down your throat,” he threatened in a snarl.

Harry flinched and immediately reached for the glass and downed the contents in one big gulp. He didn’t feel any different. Nothing was hurting so … it wasn’t poison.

This seemed to please the man greatly. “Good,” he smirked. “Co-operate and nobody will harm you. Try to hurt my husband or me and not even the resemblance to my husband will be your saving grace. That is if it’s not polyjuice potion. Is it?”

Harry found himself blurting out the truth without hesitation. “No. It’s not polyjuice. Why would I be polyjuicing as your husband?”

Voldemort hummed. “So, it’s not polyjuice,” he mused.

“I told you it is highly unlikely,” the other Harry remarked smugly.

“Indeed you did, but I had to be sure.” He turned to him again. “Are you Harry Potter?”

“Yes, I am.” Wait, why was he telling everything without any sort of inhibitions? Was he under the influence of Veritaserum? “Are you Tom Marvolo Riddle, alias Voldemort?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Voldemort grinned viciously, an amused glint in his ruby red eyes. “Sounds and acts like you as well,” he commented to the older Harry.

His older counterpart smiled as well. “I didn’t hear you complaining twenty-one years ago when you were trying to get me into your bed,” he teased.

Voldemort’s arm wound itself around his counterpart’s waist and pulled him close. “I also seem to remember you being obedient and following my orders,” he smiled smugly.

“You had my friends imprisoned and under threat of death and torture, what else was I supposed to do?”

“True,” Voldemort conceded, “but you enjoyed every second of it, admit it.”

Harry blinked, incredulous, at the scene before him. Was the other Harry _flirting_ with Voldemort? Was Voldemort _flirting_ with a version of him? Were they _married_?

“Not to interrupt or to be rude, but … what is going on?”

Voldemort released the other Harry’s waist and headed for the door. “I’ll be in the study waiting for the two of you to join me. We have much to discuss. Meanwhile, love, make sure he’s presentable and maybe get to know each other a bit. He is a version of you after all, albeit still innocent and greatly confused,” he smirked and left him even more confused.

“You heard him,” said his counterpart encouragingly, pulling him out of his stupefied state and undoing the ropes on his wrists and ankles. “Let’s clean you up.” He began pulling at his shirt and Harry held onto it with an iron grip.

“Uh, thank you, but I can shower myself,” he said. “You can leave now.”

“I know you can do it on your own, but I’m afraid my husband was very clear in his instruction that I should assist you and keep my eye on you,” his counterpart returned brightly.

“Can you like … at least not look while I shower,” he said with blushed cheeks. “I know you’re technically me and that you’ve probably seen it all, because it’s your body as well, but this is all just too weird for me and I am freaking out as is and I really don’t want to be touched by a stranger even if that stranger looks like me, probably is me,” he rambled.

His counterpart laughed amused. “You really sound and act like me,” he said, “so I understand your confusion and your reluctance perfectly. I will sit on the stool a few feet away, with my back turned. How does that sound?”

“Perfect,” he sighed, feeling heat rise in his face.

When his counterpart was facing him with his back, he slowly peeled off his wet clothes and began scrubbing himself with soap.

“So …” he said when the silence became too heavy to bear. “You’re Harry too?”

“Yes, I’m Harry as well, just not Potter anymore, but Riddle.”

A violent shudder went through Harry’s body. “I can’t believe you’re actually married to Voldemort,” he blurted dumbfounded. “That _I’m_ married to Voldemort. What were you thinking? What was _I_ thinking?”

The older Harry laughed heartily at his ramblings. “Honestly? I don’t know what I was thinking. It just sort of happened. Although not really.” He sighed. “You see, there’s a special connection between my husband and I, a connection that goes beyond most couples’ bonds. I’m able to see his thoughts and he’s able to see mine. It was through that connection that our relationship started, although I was too stubborn to admit it to myself at first.”

“You mentioned your friends being captured and used to make you obey him. What was that about?”

“During my fifth year, I started having dreams of Voldemort … or rather I was seeing his dreams or rather it was him invading my head in my sleep trying to mess with me, until he wasn’t messing with me, but trying to seduce me and I was being a hormonal teenager and I let him do it. Because what was the harm of kissing the Dark Lord in my dreams? None, I supposed. Of course, I was also horrified by the idea of being intimate and in a relationship with Voldemort. He killed my parents and so many others, so why was I letting such a monster kiss me and touch me freely? Anyway,” he breathed, “when it came to making our relationship a thing outside our heads, I refused and he didn’t like it so … he set me a trap. He made me think he had my godfather at the Ministry captured and tortured. I immediately went there, incensed with him. He was saying he wanted and loved me, yet dared harm my godfather to get to me.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “I went there with Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna and when we got there, I realised I’ve been deceived. The Death Eaters captured my friends, Voldemort appeared and he made me come with him and become his consort, otherwise he would hurt my friends. I didn’t struggle. I simply obeyed everything he told me to do.”

Harry gaped, horrified by the narrative. “He forced you to marry him and have sex, didn’t he?”

The older Harry chuckled. “People like to believe that but, in reality, he never once forced me to do anything. Not really. Even if it looked and sounded like he did.”

“Then why would you let people believe Voldemort was holding you hostage and violating you?” Harry couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

The other Harry grew silent. He couldn’t see his face, but his posture suddenly turned tense. “I don’t like it either, okay,” he finally said curtly. “I wanted to come clean to the press about our relationship many times, but each time Tom told me not to. Something about protecting me from the vultures.”

His counterpart sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “What was it that he said again? Let the public believe I forced you into marriage. Let them think I forced myself on you. It is safer and better that they think I’m a rapist as well as a murderer than to ever call you a traitor, a slut or a whore.”

“That’s messed up,” he said, still under the influence of Veritaserum.

“Oh, I know that, Harry. I know it very well, but that’s just how it is. Another difficult part is keeping such information from the kids. They don’t need to know what the press is saying about our relationship, just as they don’t need to know about how our relationship came to be, because then one would have to explain all the animosity from before, the fact that Tom tried to kill me on multiple occasions, the fact that he killed their grandparents. All in all, the kids are better off not knowing anything about what we were like before we married and had them.”

“The kids?” Harry repeated faintly, fearing what the answer would be.

“Yes, Tom and I have six children.”

A cold feeling settled in his stomach and twisted it painfully. “Six?”

There were six children of Voldemort from where he was coming as well. Were they the same six children? If so … then that meant that … the bearer of Voldemort’s kids … the one who had sex with Voldemort and got pregnant … that was _him_. _He_ was the mother – the bearer – of Voldemort’s kids.

“Aha. Delphini, Salazar, Catriona, Lana, Iphigenia and Alexander.”

“Are they here?”

His counterpart tensed at the question. “No, they disappeared to another dimension, we don’t know which, but Tom and I are doing our best to brew Delphini’s dimension travel concoction to get them back.”

“Another dimension,” he repeated, faintly. Was that where he was? In another dimension? While his counterpart’s children travelled to _his_ dimension. His head was spinning. “There are six children of Voldemort from where I come from as well.”

The other Harry spun round, his eyes wild and wide. “What?”

He swallowed hard, but his tongue was loose and he spilt the entire truth. “My friends and I overheard Snape talking to the Order of the Phoenix about six children aged one to twenty at Voldemort’s place.”

The other Harry was up and in his face in a flash, grabbing him by the arms. “Are you sure it’s them?”

“No, but the children just appeared,” Harry hurried to say, afraid of the desperate look in his counterpart’s eyes. “Nobody had seen them before.”

“And you say that they are with Voldemort.”

“Apparently,” he shrugged because he wasn’t sure. “From what Snape said, they seemed fine with your husband’s counterpart.”

The other Harry sank to his knees on the floor, tension leaving his body. “So they are home, at least. With a version of their father.” He sighed. “That’s a relief. I still want them here with Tom and me, but this eases my mind greatly.” Mature and grateful emerald green eyes looked up at him. “Thank you, Harry,” he said with a gentle smile. “Thank you for this information.”

Harry felt uncomfortable receiving gratitude from himself. “Uh, you’re welcome.”

The other Harry rose to his feet. “You should hurry up and get changed,” he urged him. “I want you to communicate that to my husband as well and answer anything he wishes to know about you and your situation.”

“Of course,” he nodded and hurried with his shower, while his counterpart went to fetch the clothes that belonged to his son and gave him the privacy to dress. With the locket safely tucked under the shirt, he followed the other Harry downstairs to Voldemort’s study.

“At last,” the man greeted from his leather seat when he saw them. “Took you long enough.” Harry didn’t appreciate the tone nor the words, but his counterpart seemed to take it as good-natured teasing and joined him.

“Harry has excellent news of our children, Tom. You shouldn’t make scathing remarks to him and about him,” he gently scolded him.

The change in Voldemort’s demeanour was instant. There was savage desperation that he tried to keep hidden swirling like a tempest inside the ruby eyes. “You do?” he demanded. “Then tell me all you know.”

“Like I said to your husband, I only know what I overheard.”

“What have you overheard?”

“That there are six children, aged one to twenty at your place from where I come from and that they seem fine with the other Voldemort.”

“They’re at Riddle Manor, with my counterpart of your dimension?” he repeated, incredulously.

Harry nodded. “It would seem so.”

“And where do you come from? How did you come here? What year is it? What is the current situation between you and your Voldemort?”

Harry sputtered indignantly. “He’s not mine!” he protested, feeling heat creep up his neck and flush his cheeks. “I mean, he is the Voldemort of the dimension I come from, but he has nothing to do with me.”

Voldemort scowled darkly. Harry quickly shut his mouth and started narrating.

“I don’t know from which dimension I am. I just know that today was 1 July 1995 and that, while I was playing hide-and-seek with my friends, I hid in the attic of my godfather’s house, knocked over some potions when something came flying at my face, the potions mixed with some ritual circle, started glowing and I fell through the hole in the ground. As for my situation with Voldemort, a week ago, he kidnapped me to a graveyard, took some of my blood and gained a body. Prior to the arrival of your kids to his house, he was determined to kill me, but now he wants to find me and confirm something somebody said to him about me. I have no idea what that thing could be.”

The other Harry and Voldemort exchanged looks. “Do you think it’s about the horcrux or do you think it’s about the kids?” he asked in a whisper.

“With how easily our children blurt things out, I wouldn’t put it past them to tell a version of me about you, Harry, being my horcrux,” Voldemort grumbled. “Especially if they consider him a replacement for me of sorts.”

“Still, in less than twenty-four hours. He’s as good as a stranger to them, even if he is technically you or a different version of you,” insisted the other Harry.

Harry stood there, confused. He cleared his throat. “Uh, excuse me, but … what’s a horcrux?”

“Do we tell him?” inquired his counterpart. “I think he deserves to know and be prepared if that’s what your counterpart is trying to confirm.”

Voldemort scowled in thought, staring at him, considering him. Harry felt scrutinised and uncomfortable. He didn’t want to be the centre of Voldemort’s stare and attention. Even if the man before him looked incredibly handsome and hot and sexy. He could definitely see why the other Harry would even consider having sex and children with Voldemort.

After a while, the man said, “Fine, I’ll tell him.” He looked at him. “A horcrux is an object, an animal or a person – in your case – that acts as the vessel for another person’s soul.” Harry’s eyes widened. “You, Harry, are my counterpart’s horcrux, just as my husband is mine. You carry a piece of my counterpart’s soul inside of you.”

Harry froze on the spot; thousands of tiny needles were pricking him. His limbs turned heavy as lead and as cold as ice. His vision became spotted. The world around him swayed and he fainted … again.

…

“Harry!” his consort exclaimed and hurried to his younger counterpart’s aid.

He remained unfazed. “He even faints like you,” he commented instead, much to his husband’s chagrin.

Glaring, Harry turned to him. “Really? You really couldn’t deliver the news with more tact, could you? You had to be the same prick you were twenty-one years ago when you told me about it as well.”

Tom smirked, aroused by his husband’s rant. “You two even had the same reaction to the news. You truly are each other’s mirror,” he teased.

Harry huffed. “You’re insufferable sometimes.”

“ _I love you,_ ” he hissed softly. His gaze filled with the tender emotion.

Harry’s scowl dissolved instantly into an expression of love and happiness. “ _I love you too._ But you’re still a prick for being so calloused.”

He chuckled. “Anyway, I’m surprised that the kids ended in the Riddle Manor with my counterpart and that my counterpart has taken them in while still emotionally and mentally unstable.”

“Maybe they can stabilise him with their presence,” suggested Harry. “Like how being with your family finally managed to restore your soul and keep you sane.”

“It’s possible,” he narrowed his eyes in thought. “I just need him to tell me what sort of potions he was covered in and what the ritual circle looked like. If we can replicate the circumstances of his dimension travel, maybe we can get to our children faster.”

“Too bad you had him shower before we could identify the potions,” sighed Harry. “And I don’t think you’ll have much luck getting the information about the ritual circle out of him either. If he’s really like me, then I can tell you that, at fourteen, my capacity for memorisation of random things was abysmal.”

“ _Damn it!_ ” he hissed under his breath in frustration. “Why didn’t you stop me or say anything?”

“I couldn’t think that clearly with the stench invading my nostrils and incapacitating my brain,” he said. He turned his thoughtful gaze to his younger self. “I’m surprised my counterpart is currently living with Sirius, when I was forced to go back to the Dursleys after your resurrection.”

“Perhaps there’s finally a Dumbledore who saw reason and instead of forcing you back to your relatives, finally hid you at the Order’s headquarters.”

A melancholic smile spread over his consort’s lips, his younger self safely cradled in his arms. “I’m glad there’s a version of me who was spared the loneliness and isolation I went through that summer.” He looked up. “It’s probably why I found it so easy to fall into your clutches.”

He grinned. “There were many reasons that made you come to me, Harry, but there is only one that made you stay: your love for our children and me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort is having so much fun teasing his consort's younger counterpart. 😉 Poor Harry is not ready for any of it. 😛 
> 
> Also a bit of backstory on how the other Tom and Harry got together (I might decide to write a prequel of sorts some time in the future with all the juicy details and conversations) and the fact they decided to keep their messy past away from the children together with anything unsavory. Unfortunately for them their children are a curious and most importantly an intelligent bunch so, they know how to get around certain things (though not all of them).


	10. A Precarious Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Harry is getting settled in the other dimension, Voldemort receives a visit from Dumbledore, begrudgingly agrees to talk with him and learns of Harry's disappearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get juicy. 😉

_12 Grimmauld Place II_

_1 July 1995, 19:01_

Dumbledore was quietly analysing the scene in the attic, casting diagnostic spells to detect magical traces, casting different lights to spot any signs of struggle and other important magical residue.

After a while, Molly grew impatient with the silence and asked, “And, Albus? What is your conclusion?”

“It looks to me to be an instance of unfortunate accident. No sign of struggle, no second or third parties involved.”

“If Harry wasn’t kidnapped, what happened to him then?” asked Sirius, also eager to learn about the fate of his godson.

“I doubt that he’s dead, if that is what you’re wondering,” remarked Dumbledore, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “It’s far more complicated than that I’m afraid.”

Molly and Sirius exchanged looks. “How so?” he asked.

“If my assessment and analysis of the runic circle and the residue left behind by the potions that were smashed is correct, I firmly believe that Harry has accidentally travelled to another dimension or to another time at the very least.”

Molly and Sirius gaped at Albus.

“How are we going to pinpoint his location?” wondered Sirius. “He could be anywhere in any time.”

Dumbledore hummed, with a shrewd look in his eyes. “I think it’s not going to be that difficult to find him. Time-consuming, yes, but not difficult.”

“What do you mean, Albus?” questioned Molly.

“Do you remember what Severus told us yesterday?”

“He told us many things, Albus,” she grumbled. “Be more specific.”

“Six children appeared out of nowhere at Voldemort’s house,” he began, “I am convinced that their sudden appearance unwittingly created a two-way bridge from their dimension and timeline to ours. Therefore, if we are to find our Harry, we must first have a word with Voldemort and Harry’s children from another dimension.”

Molly and Sirius were horrified by what Albus was suggesting.

“You’re not implying that we should kidnap the children, are you?” Molly sputtered indignantly.

“I thought we have already established that we wouldn’t stoop so low,” added Sirius.

Albus chuckled. “No, no, of course not. Merlin forbid. No, what I’m _saying_ is that we should arrange a meeting with Voldemort first, offer him a temporary truce and then, with his authorisation – because he is sort of the kids’ stand-in father after all – speak with the children. We could even work together with him to bring our Harry back and send the kids back to their biological parents,” he concluded brightly.

Molly and Sirius were regarding him as if he had lost his marbles.

“That’s almost as bad as kidnapping the man’s children,” said Sirius in disbelief. “What if he demands Harry in exchange for his help? I’m not gambling my godson to that … man.”

“But your godson is probably already living under the same roof as Voldemort, just a different one,” Albus said lightly.

Sirius opened and closed his mouth, searching for the right words to retort. “Well … at least the other Voldemort is married to the other Harry.” He shuddered. “How could a version of me let something like that happen in the first place?”

“Cheer up, Sirius,” Albus clasped his shoulder gingerly. “It’s probably not as dire a situation as you think it is, and even if our dimension’s Voldemort requests Harry as payment for his services, it is up to Harry to decide whether he wants to stay with Voldemort or not.”

He began walking towards the door.

“He’ll probably learn about the children his counterpart and the other Voldemort have conceived and see how it is when the two of them work together rather than against each other. Then, it will be up to him to decide whether he wants a family with Voldemort as well or not. In case he wants it, the Order will not intervene in any way, but should he decide he doesn’t want Voldemort, and the man doesn’t respect his wish, then we will keep Harry safe and far away from him as possible.”

He smirked.

“However, knowing Harry, I have a feeling he’ll choose the former. Therefore, if I were you, Sirius, I would start mentally preparing myself for at least half a dozen of Voldemort and Harry’s kids. Maybe they’ll even surpass you, Molly.”

He chuckled to himself at the shocked look on Sirius’ face. Molly was no different either.

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_1 July 2017, 18:01_

While Harry’s younger counterpart was still unconscious, with his husband carding his fingers through the boy’s hair, an idea sprouted in Tom’s mind. “Harry,” he began.

His consort murmured in acknowledgment.

“If the boy came here through his godfather’s attic … perhaps there are still the same ritual circle and potions at Grimmauld Place as in your counterpart’s dimension and time.”

Harry’s expression brightened. “You are a genius, Tom,” he praised, only for him to frown a moment later. “No, wait. I recall Sirius doing some deep and thorough cleaning at his childhood place, I’m not sure if he did anything to the attic, but I wouldn’t count on the attic to be in the same state as the one in my counterpart’s dimension and time.”

“I will call on Sirius and ask him.”

“I still say we should brew Delphini’s concoction just in case,” suggested Harry. “I know you are tempted to use a shortcut, because I’m tempted to use it too, but we don’t know if there’s enough of whichever potion caused such a reaction for a return trip. Maybe it didn’t even have anything to do with the rune circle. Maybe there were multiple potions required. Our daughter’s way is much more fool proof at the moment than any other alternative.”

“Agreed. Barty, Severus and your godfather should have the potion ingredients ready in a day or two and then we will begin the preparation and the brewing process.”

Harry nodded. “Still … I probably shouldn’t hope for a reunion before my birthday, should I?” he remarked melancholically.

He sighed. He didn’t want to see his husband in low spirits; however, it would be equally irresponsible of him to give him false hope. Not to mention that ever since Harry found out he kept quiet about Delphini’s experiments, he made him swear never to hide things from him or lie to him again. “Probably not, love,” he said.

His husband swallowed thickly and pressed his lips together. Silence settled between them.

“He looks like he could be our child, doesn’t he?” Harry commented absent-mindedly in regards to his counterpart. “I know he isn’t but … he’s Catriona’s age, Salazar’s clothes fit him, he has my looks and attitude.”

Tom smiled softly. “He could be.”

Something caught Harry’s eye and he let out a gasp. “Tom, look.”

“What is it?” he inquired intrigued.

Harry reached under the shirt his counterpart was wearing and pulled out a very familiar looking chain and locket. His eyes grew wide, then darkened.

“He has Locket,” whispered Harry, clasping the pendant in his hand, gently stroking it. “He has found Locket at Grimmauld Place … just like I have all those years ago. Probably has no idea what it is, but still. He has come into possession of another of your horcruxes. Hopefully he doesn’t end up stabbing it with a basilisk fang like I stabbed the diary in self-defence.”

“If he’s found it at his godfather’s place, then that means that Regulus dared to infiltrate the cave and replaced the original with the fake in his dimension as well,” he concluded gravely.

“If your counterpart was as horrible as you were forty years ago to Kreacher, I’m not surprised that Regulus snapped out of whatever reverence he had for you and turned against you … again,” remarked Harry. “Honestly, you can’t blame the man for caring for his house elf or for being disgusted with you for shredding your soul apart.”

“He tried to destroy a piece of my soul,” Tom snarled.

“True,” Harry conceded, “but you almost killed his house elf, so he would call it even.”

“I may have ripped my soul apart for the sake of immortality, but I cared about my horcruxes, otherwise, I wouldn’t have put them under so many protections,” he pointed out. “As for that blasted house elf, I couldn’t have cared less about it.”

“And that sort of attitude got Locket into all sorts of trouble, leaving it to fend for itself for years against house elf magic, until I found him and rescued him,” his consort said nonchalantly.

“Yeah,” he grimaced, “lucky him.”

Harry chuckled. “Are you still bothered by the fact that your horcruxes flirted with me? You do realise that they were all you, don’t you? So technically, _you_ flirted with me in _seven_ different ways.”

Tom didn’t answer. He knew it was irrational, since technically it was still he, who had flirted incessantly with Harry, but he couldn’t help it. What was worse, Harry didn’t mind it one bit! In fact, he flirted back! It bothered him just to think about it. That was one of the reasons he was so ready to reabsorb his soul pieces – save for the one inside Harry. He didn’t want to lose the connection they had, the ability to share thoughts and their emotions through their link, the ability to communicate telepathically, and Harry was of the same mind, because even when he offered to rid him of the soul piece, Harry refused to give it up.

The flirting became unbearable even for him since the horcruxes apparently didn’t care that Harry and he were married. What was worse, they considered Harry their husband too, since they were part of him and they demanded that he give them their own body so they could have their way with Harry and father a few children as well. Apparently, it was extremely cruel and rude of him to have Harry’s delicious ass and lips to himself, or reabsorb them so they too could experience the bliss of being married to him.

In the end, his jealousy of his own self pushed him into putting his soul back together, but it took years for his soul to heal fully. If it weren’t for Harry and their children, he probably would have remained a broken man, shattered and scattered. Harry and the kids grounded him, gave him stability and everything else he had lacked as a child, teenager and adult for most of his life.

A groan from Harry’s counterpart brought them out of the conversation. Both turned to look at him as confused emerald green eyes opened and surveyed the surroundings.

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he began once his eyes landed on Harry and cleared as recognition sparked in them. “I’ve really somehow travelled through space and time. You are married to Voldemort, which in turn makes me married to him too, and you have given birth to six children whose father is Voldemort, which means that I’m also going to give birth to Voldemort’s children in a few years’ time, which means that Voldemort and I are going to have sex and … and … I’m also his horcrux …”

The more the boy talked, the more agitated he became, until he was almost hyperventilating and his consort had to calm him down. “Harry, breathe, relax.”

“RELAX?” the boy snapped and sat up, his eyes wide and wild from panic. “You want me to relax? How can I relax when, instead of killing each other, Voldemort and I are going to fuck each other senseless until there are at least six children popping out of my … out of my …” He blinked in confusion. “Out of whatever place you gave birth!” he concluded in a yell.

His consort smiled gently at the boy and even he found the boy’s outburst amusing. “It’s honestly not bad being married to Tom, the sex is great and while childbirth certainly hurts, it’s worth it in the end,” Harry said casually to his counterpart.

The boy gaped at his older self as if he had gone mad. “I don’t care if the sex is good or if he ends up looking like a literal sex god like your husband!” he exploded, waving his hands. “The man has been trying to kill me since I’ve been born and now he suddenly wants to poke me with knives and needles to confirm whatever he wants to confirm, not to mention that he killed our parents and thousands of others, and you are telling me that I have a piece of his soul inside me and that marriage, sex and kids with Voldemort are the solution.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I doubt he would poke you with knives and needles,” he smirked, flashing his teeth in a predatory manner, “I’m not that kinky and I doubt that my counterpart is too. If there’s anything he’ll be poking you with, once you are mature enough for it, will be his cock.”

Now the boy gaped horrified at him. First deathly pallor and then a furious blush coated his cheeks. His consort laughed some more. “Don’t scare him with your dirty talk, darling,” teased Harry. “He just might faint again. Remember, I too was not prepared for the flirting, sexual innuendos and dirty talking.”

“I’m just trying to tell him what awaits him once my counterpart decides to have him,” he shrugged, a suggestive smirk still on his lips.

“First,” said the flushed boy after recovering his voice, “my Voldemort is not like that.”

“Yet,” he grinned.

The boy ignored him. “And second, as if I’d let him get near my ass and mouth with his … his …” it would seem the boy couldn’t bring himself to say it; he just blushed furiously.

“Cock,” he finished for him, grinning like a predator.

Oh, he was enjoying making Harry’s younger counterpart blush and squirm. It reminded him of his consort at the beginning of their relationship, when he was still innocent to the dirty thoughts and the dirty talk, when he was oblivious to the point of not knowing when he was flirting with him or when he was teasing him.

“Quite big and thick too, I must say,” he continued. “Ask Harry, he seems to enjoy it very much when I fill and stretch his tight asshole and he’s moaning and writhing beneath me and on top of me, begging me to fuck him hard and fast, until he’s milking my come and I fill him to the brim with it.”

He could have sworn there was steam coming out of Harry’s counterpart from blushing so much, and he was giving the impression that he was vividly imagining everything he was describing as well.

“Of course, his mouth, hand and thighs feel good too, but there’s nothing quite like being buried deep inside his tight heat and making sure his womb is full of my sperm until he’s carrying my child.”

The boy screamed, covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m not listening,” he chanted. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know it. I don’t want to see or imagine it.”

He laughed and the deep, rich sound seemed to have an effect on Harry’s counterpart. The boy turned and raced out of the study. His consort looked at him. “Now look what you’ve done,” he reproached him playfully. “The poor boy is completely traumatised, and if I didn’t know that you were just teasing him to get the same reactions you got from me when I was younger, I would say that you were flirting with my younger self.”

He smirked suggestively, rose to his feet and approached his husband. “You wouldn’t happen to be jealous of your own self now, would you, love?” he teased him just as Harry enjoyed teasing him about being jealous of his horcruxes.

His arms wound themselves around his waist and pulled him close. Their breaths mingled together as their lips were less than an inch apart.

“Me, jealous of myself?” Harry gasped exaggeratedly. His arms rested on his shoulders, around his neck, a coquettish smirk curling his mouth. “Never. Why would I, when I know that you only have eyes for _me_.”

He closed the distance separating them and caught his consort’s lips in a slow kiss, filled with love and adoration, their tongues moving together lazily, as they mapped out each other’s mouth again. After they had both had their fill for the time being, they slowly separated, with their foreheads and noses touching, eyes still closed and blissful grins on their lips.

“I should probably go after him,” whispered Harry, stroking Tom’s cheek and rubbing their noses together. “See if he’s hungry or tired.”

“Fine,” he breathed and let go of his husband. “Go if you must, but once you’ve taken care of him, I wish to have you all to myself before somebody else interrupts us.”

Harry smiled and pressed a quick and chaste kiss to his lips. “I promise.”

With that, he turned and left the study and Tom stared after him.

…

He wanted to go back. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up to the walls of his room at 12 Grimmauld Place. He wanted all of this to be a nightmare, because otherwise he would go insane from the disturbingly hot images that filled his mind after listening to Voldemort speak about fucking him – or rather fucking his older counterpart – stretching and filling him, pumping him full of his hot and thick seed, knocking him up with babies. Oh, and the man’s smirk and his ruby eyes, so beautiful and hypnotising, and his laughter, deep and rich … so manly and arousing …

He banged his hands against his head.

‘ _No, no, NO!_ ’ he yelled at himself internally. ‘ _What are you thinking? This is wrong. This is madness. These people are crazy. My counterpart is crazy. I have to get out and away from here. I don’t want any of what Voldemort was describing a moment ago. There’s no way in hell I would ever enjoy having his dick shoved up my ass, fucking me into the mattress and knocking me up with babies. That’s never going to happen. NEVER!_ ’

“Harry,” he heard the muffled voice of his counterpart call him and he shrunk further into his hiding place – the floor behind some boxes filled with old clothes and shoes in the attic.

He didn’t answer the call. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He was too ashamed to face anyone. If his counterpart knew he was appreciating his husband’s appearance and thinking sinful thoughts about his husband, he would probably get angry … At least … _he_ would get angry if somebody ogled and imagined his husband doing lewd things to them.

However, he had no luck with hiding, for his older counterpart found him easily. “I figured you would come here,” he said softly, approaching him.

“Leave me be,” he grumbled petulantly, hugging his knees to his chest. “I don’t want to see you or talk to you right now.”

The other Harry sighed heavily and sat down next to him on the floor. “Fine. Don’t talk if you don’t want to, just let me know if you’re hungry or tired so I know whether I should make a third portion and to get a room ready for you to sleep in,” he said.

Harry stayed silent.

“Are you hungry?”

Harry shook his head, but since Veritaserum was still in effect, he was compelled to tell the truth. “Yes.”

His counterpart smiled. “I’ll have dinner ready in an hour. Would you like to eat it with Tom and me in the dining room or would you prefer to eat in the bedroom?”

“In the bedroom,” he murmured.

“Okay,” he sighed and got up, dusting his trousers off, “then, I’ll prepare one of the guestrooms for you … unless you’d rather sleep in Salazar’s room. I’m sure you’ll like it since he’s a teenage boy as well, even though he’s a few years older than you.”

It would be safer and better to go with a guestroom, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t even remotely curious to explore Salazar’s room.

“Salazar’s room,” said the Veritaserum for him.

The older Harry grinned wide. “Then, if you’d follow me so I can show you where it is,” he prompted and Harry had no choice but to stand and follow the other Harry downstairs. “Do you still remember how to get to the bathroom?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent!” he exclaimed happily. “Don’t hesitate to use it if you need it.”

A minute later, they arrived at Salazar’s room and when the light illuminated everything, Harry found himself gaping in admiration and bewilderment at the inside of the room. There was a large comfortable-looking bed with black covers, fluffy pillows, muggle posters on the walls, a desk with a very modern computer, a large, thin monitor, modern consoles, plenty of video games, books and an entire art station filled with art supplies.

Surprisingly, there were no paintings hanging from the walls. “If Salazar paints, where are his paintings?” he asked.

“Salazar is not very proud of his work,” said the older Harry, frowning slightly. “He’s afraid of it.”

He frowned in confusion. “Why?”

“Because he believes his art is cursed and it makes people go insane just by looking at it, so he keeps his paintings hidden either in the attic, the basement or here in his room.” He walked over to a chest fitted with locks.

“Does it really?” he dared to ask. “Drive people insane, I mean.”

“If people hearing and seeing hallucinations, speaking gibberish and behaving strange in other ways counts as mad, then the answer is yes. Salazar’s art does have that sort of an effect on people. Therefore, please, refrain from going through his sketchbook or his paintings, no matter how tempted you might be,” he warned.

“But … surely you’ve seen them and Voldemort too and neither of you have gone mad because of it,” he rationalised.

“True, and while Tom and I are by no means weak-minded and weak-willed people, even we have felt the dark and oppressive aura emitting out of the paintings, making it difficult to breathe and think. There were whispers involved as well. Luckily, we couldn’t understand them or we too might have gone insane. Therefore, better be safe than sorry,” insisted his older self.

“If I can’t look at them, can you at least tell me what he tends to paint that it would elicit this kind of a reaction from others?”

“He’s good at drawing portraits of dark, grotesque, macabre, fantastical beings with minimalistic backgrounds which also tend to be dark and gloomy.”

A shiver ran through him at the description, but his curiosity burnt with an even brighter and stronger flame inside of him than before. He knew better than to ask for a glance and out of respect for his son’s privacy and desire to keep his art locked away; he would refrain from looking for it too.

“Other than that,” continued the other Harry. “You’re free to use the computer, the consoles and play whichever game you’d like. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind and don’t be afraid to use his clothes either.”

A knock brought them out of the conversation. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll bring dinner once it’s ready,” he said excitedly and left.

A buzzing silence echoed in his ears. He was looking at the games to see which one would interest him the most, when a dark, suffocating and threatening aura made his hair stand up, goosebumps erupt all over his flesh and his inner organs feel compressed.

Through the haze, he heard a piercing inhuman screech that gave him a headache and that made the entire house rumble.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_1 July 1995, 19:45_

Tired from shopping in a muggle district and with a full stomach, Voldemort found himself resting on the sofa in the sitting room, with Alexander in his lap, watching Catriona and Salazar dance jive to some upbeat music and Lana and Iphigenia cling to Barty’s arms as he tried – but failed – to lift them.

“You’re too heavy for me to lift you like that,” he complained to his daughters.

“No, we’re not,” said Lana, with her hands on her hips, “you’re just too weak. You have to build some muscle, Uncle Barty. That’s what it is.”

Delphini was sitting next to him on the sofa, staring absent-mindedly at the scene before her.

“What’s going on inside that head of yours, for you to be so deep in thought?” he asked, not taking his eyes off his other children.

“Plenty of things,” she deadpanned, “right now I’m going through a crisis.”

He looked at her. “What’s sort of crisis?”

She blinked a few times, swallowing thickly, searching for words. “When we decided to follow Alexander, we just … left. We left no note explaining what occurred; I didn’t even inform my fiancé of this trip.” Her jaw twitched and her voice shook. “I thought, ‘ _I’m sure dad and Ethan will understand, after all, it’s only going to be a month and we’re trying to teach our father a valuable lesson about the importance of family, I can survive a month without my parents and my fiancé._ ’ Yet … look at me,” she snorted self-deprecatingly. “It’s barely been twenty-four hours since we came here and I already feel like the worst daughter and mate in the world for just up and leaving like that.”

She pressed her trembling lips together to hold back the sobs. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Her breathing turned ragged and hoarse.

Not sure what to do – or even if his eldest would appreciate it –, he did the first thing that came to him and hooked the arm closest to her around her shoulder and pulled her to him. She stiffened for a moment, before relaxing into his side and burying her face into his shoulder.

“Ethan must be thinking I abandoned him,” she lamented in a small voice, covering her mouth. “That I changed my mind about the wedding and him and I don’t even want to imagine our dad, worried sick about our disappearance,” she sobbed quietly into her hand.

He rested his cheek on top of her head, carding his clawed fingers through her locks. “Why would your fiancé think like that? Doesn’t he have faith in your feelings for him?” he inquired softly.

“While sentient, he’s not human. He may speak like a gentleman and even emulate human mannerisms, but at the end of the day, he is a demon … a beast. He processes things differently than humans; he behaves like a beast. He is protective, possessive, and territorial. He calls me his mate. To him, we’re not getting married, we’re mating for life. To him, we’re not going to have a home, but a nest for us and our young and to him, my disappearance won’t seem temporary, but a permanent one. The abruptness of it will signify to him that I abandoned him … and it will crush him.”

She covered her eyes too and wept noiselessly, while her shoulders shook from the suppressed sobs that were wrecking her body. He continued to hold her close, providing silent and awkward comfort, because while he had accepted them as his counterpart’s children, he was completely inexperienced in paternal matters and matters of a more tender nature.

“What about your father?” Voldemort asked. “Do you think he won’t be crushed to find you gone without any sort of note and guarantee of safe return?”

Delphini burst into another wave of silent tears. “Of course he will,” she managed to say, her voice small and vulnerable. “He may be a workaholic, but it’s not like he doesn’t care, because he does, a lot. He loves us and we love him too, even when he messes up and does morally questionable or downright unethical things.”

“Big sister owie?” Alexander’s innocent question made both Voldemort and Delphini look at him.

She sniffed and gave a weak smile to her youngest brother. “A bit,” she admitted.

“Alex chomp mean fingers for big sister,” he offered, scowling adorably.

They chuckled at his enthusiasm to protect Delphini and reached out to caress his hair.

“Thank you, Alex,” she said, “but I’ll be fine. I promise.”

There was a knock on the main door. They all stopped what they were doing and exchanged wary looks.

“Who could that be at this hour?” whispered Catriona. “It’s not like you are expecting any guests, are you?” she asked Barty and him.

Voldemort scowled. “No, I’m not expecting anybody. Lana,” he called sternly when he saw her gather air, her face lit up like a candle, ready to volunteer to open the door, “you’re not going to open the door to any strangers.” He looked at Barty, ignoring her pout. “Barty, go check who it is.”

“Yes, my Lord,” he said, taking out his wand.

A few seconds later, they all heard, “Good evening, Barty. I’m glad to see you in good health. May I have a word with Tom?”

The moment Voldemort registered Dumbledore’s voice; he clutched Alexander tight to him, rose to his feet and whipped out his wand ready to attack Albus on sight. How did the senile old man dare come visit him in his own house? Not to mention that he still had the audacity to call him by his common muggle name.

He marched up to the Entrance Hall, glowering. Dumbledore saw him and the child in his arms. He smiled amiably, his eyes twinkling. “Tom,” he greeted. “So good to see you. I see you’re busy.”

He greeted him with a Cutting hex. Dumbledore conjured up a wandless, wordless shield.

“I suppose you aren’t glad to see me.”

“Leave,” he snarled with pure venom. “You’re not welcome here, Albus. You and your bloody Order.”

“A pity,” Dumbledore sighed, “I had hoped you would spare me a few minutes of your valuable time. I have an urgent matter of utter importance to discuss with you.”

“There is nothing for us to discuss.”

One of Dumbledore’s eyebrows arched as his eyes looked behind him. “Not even your children – or rather another Tom’s children – and Harry Potter?” he asked, a shrewd glint creeping into his eyes.

He froze. He looked towards the sitting room door and saw the rest of his children peering through the crack. For a moment, all anger left his body, only to return with force at the thought of Albus’ Order endangering the children. He tightened his hold on Alexander. “What do you want?” he grumbled.

“For starters, I would really appreciate it if you invited me into your house and offered me a glass of water.”

Scowling, he begrudgingly let him in on the condition that he hand his wands over to Barty, who was still pointing his own wand at Dumbledore. Albus didn’t resist or play any tricks.

“Go to your rooms,” he snapped at his children.

They scurried off upstairs without a word, while he guided his enemy into his personal study. Winky brought a jug of water and two glasses. Dumbledore served himself.

“So refreshing,” he sighed in delight after a large sip. “I feel better already. Would you also happen to have some sweets on hand? I do have a sudden craving for a Danish with custard cream and raspberry puree.”

“Whatever you have to say,” Voldemort hissed under his breath from his chair, “make it quick and be gone.”

Albus’ smile fell and the twinkle died out. “Very well. I came to offer you a temporary truce.”

He frowned and readjusted the toddler in his lap. “Why?”

“Harry is missing.”

Voldemort’s eyes widened. His body felt tense. “What? What do you mean the boy is missing? When did it happen?” he demanded, trying his best to keep the desperation and concern out of his voice. The boy was potentially his horcrux after all and the bearer of his children … well, not this one, but the other Harry. Curses, it’s not like it mattered!

“This evening,” began Dumbledore. “It is my theory that he has somehow managed to travel to the dimension from which the children you are currently housing are and if my theory is correct, he is staying with the children’s parents.”

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “And why have you come to tell me this? Wouldn’t it be in your best interest to keep me in the dark about the boy’s disappearance so I wouldn’t be looking for him?”

“Because I want you to help me find him, Tom, that’s why,” Dumbledore said serenely.

“What are you playing at, Dumbledore? What’s the catch?”

“I simply wish to make things right, Tom, and that involves finding Harry and making sure that Harry and Tom’s children from another dimension reach their home safely,” he said smiling.

Voldemort still wasn’t convinced. Unfortunately, he couldn’t coax the truth out of Dumbledore through Legilimency, because the man was good at Occlumency. “Why ask for my help? Can’t you and your Order do it yourselves?”

“Because it is in _your_ best personal interest to get the boy safely back home.”

“Why?” he insisted.

Dumbledore sighed and said something Voldemort would never have thought Dumbledore would say to him. “Because he is most likely housing a piece of you inside of him and saving and protecting Harry means that you are saving and protecting yourself, Tom.”

Voldemort stared at Dumbledore, stunned into speechlessness. Dumbledore had just admitted that there was a possibility that Harry was indeed his horcrux.

“Surely you must have noticed the connection, Tom, or are you that desensitised to your own soul that you can’t even feel it when it’s in front of you?” continued Dumbledore softly, a sad expression on his face.

A cold feeling spread over his being. “How long have you known about the boy being my horcrux?” he whispered dangerously.

“I don’t know if he is, Tom, but I’ve had my suspicions since the boy’s second year, when I learnt that he could speak to snakes, when he came to me in his fourth year saying he could see you in his dreams planning something, alongside Wormtail and Barty Junior.”

“And would you have used the boy to destroy me?” he said through clenched teeth. “Would you have destroyed him to get to me?”

“If you had forced my hand … if there was no other way to stop you from causing mayhem … I probably would have,” admitted Dumbledore. “However, I’ve come to care too much for that boy to use him as a sacrificial lamb and I still hold hope that you will see reason and that it will not come to another war.”

Voldemort snorted and sneered. “As if.”

“It’s true,” the man insisted. “I don’t want to destroy you, Tom, if I can avoid it, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to re-think and re-evaluate your goals, maybe consider having your own family, like a version of you has done already.”

He frowned. He still didn’t trust Dumbledore, but he saw merit in giving a relationship with Potter a try. “If I am to agree to a temporary truce with you and agree to help you get Potter back here, I want him as payment,” he said coldly. “If he’s really my horcrux, if he really carries a piece of my soul then I’m never letting him out of my sight again.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “I figured that would be the case. However, I am afraid it is not within my power to decide whether Harry will remain with you or not. It is up to Harry to decide whether he wants to spend the rest of his life with you or not and I will respect whichever decision he makes. However, a word of advice, Tom. If you want to make Harry stay with you and form a family with you … make sure you don’t harm him any more than you already have.”

“Why would I harm my own horcrux now that I know that he is my horcrux?”

Dumbledore regarded him with pity and it made blood boil in his veins. He didn’t need the old man’s pity. “Physical violence is not the only way of harming someone, you should know that,” he said softly.

“Are you questioning my ability to take care of my own property?” he snarled.

“And there is nothing more painful to Harry than to be reduced to an object with no free will,” continued Dumbledore. “He is a free and indomitable spirit, much like Lily, much like James, and there is no bigger cruelty than keeping him caged, controlled and treated as an object.”

For the second time in less than five minutes, Dumbledore had stunned Voldemort into silence.

He rose. “I will keep in touch … if you learn of anything that could help us find Harry, let me know, just as I will inform you if there are any fresh developments on our end.” He walked to the door and paused with a hand on the handle. “Oh, and say hello to the children. I would have liked to meet them myself, but I do not want to incur your anger further and to overstay my welcome. Goodbye, Tom, and take care.”

He left, leaving a bewildered Voldemort behind.

“Papa?” Alexander’s gentle call brought him out of his daze.

He blinked a few times and looked down at his son. “Yes, Alexander?”

“Who that?”

“A meddling old fool, that’s who, son.”

“Madding foo,” the toddler repeated with a cute frown, trying out the words rolling off his tongue for the first time.

He smiled, placed a kiss on top of Alexander’s head and hugged him close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other Tom continues to tease his husband's counterpart and poor teen Harry is getting affected by his words and the images they paint in his mind. 😆 Meanwhile Delphini is feeling bad for her actions and Voldemort comforts her.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the strained conversation between Voldemort and Dumbledore. They will slowly but surely improve their rapport with one another. 😊
> 
> Also, we got another glimpse into the past in the other dimension, especially in regards to the horcruxes, their relationship with Harry and what ultimately drove Voldemort to put himself back together. There are still missing links and some of you might be confused, especially in regards to how and when Delphini found out about the horcruxes as well as when exactly did Voldemort reabsorb them and when he went back to looking human again, but I promise I'll explain it eventually. If even after that you feel confused, feel free to ask questions. 🤗
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you liked the chapter! Let me know your thoughts! 🥰


	11. Emperor Lord Voldemort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry sees Delphini's fiance, witnesses a very arousing sight the following morning and offers to help his counterpart reach his children. Voldemort, on the other hand, is trying to find out how he and Harry got together in the other dimension and what is a world ruled by him like.

_Riddle Manor I_

_1 July 2017, 18:20_

Harry opened the door to the corridor and hurried to the staircase to see what was causing the tremors and who was wailing like a wounded animal.

When he caught a glimpse of the figure, he froze in shock and terror. A twenty-foot tall, dark creature with a huge, elongated animal skull with horns and fangs, a mane of tar-soaked feathers, spiked back, exposed ribcage, gleaming red eyes, two pairs of long black arms with claws, and at least a dozen tentacles instead of legs was towering over the older Harry and Voldemort, dripping a black, tar-like substance all over the floor.

The substance had an acrid smell and emitted vapour, corroding everything it touched. Harry started to feel suffocated and faint, as if his internal organs were being crushed and his lungs couldn’t get air to other parts of his body. His legs gave way and he crumpled to the floor.

“ _Delphini,_ ” the demonic voice lamented. “ _Why has she gone? Does she not want to mate me anymore? Has she abandoned me?_ ”

“Please, Ethan, calm down,” he heard his counterpart, “we don’t know where exactly she is, but we know that she’ll be back. She hasn’t abandoned you or changed her mind about mating you. She is very much in love with you.”

“ _Then why did she leave without saying anything to me?_ ”

“I’m sure it was because she was in a hurry.”

“ _How long will she be away?_ ”

“A month, maybe less. Tom and I are doing our best to bring her and her siblings back home as soon as possible. Just calm down and change back into your human disguise. Then we will discuss everything we know in detail with you.”

Harry couldn’t take the oppressive demonic aura anymore and he started to crawl back towards Salazar’s room. This was supposed to be his eldest daughter’s future husband! She was in love with him! He wasn’t even human! How could Voldemort and the other Harry allow their daughter to marry an actual _demon_?

As he reached the bedroom, and the other Harry managed to get through to the demon’s grief, the tremors stopped and the heavy feeling pressing down on Harry lifted almost instantly. With a sigh of relief, he closed the door and pressed his back against the wood, panting.

…

Scowling and with arms crossed over his chest, Tom regarded his future-son-in-law in somewhat human form while his husband mended the corroded walls, floorboards and furniture.

“I apologise for my outburst,” said Ethan in a deep, regretful voice.

He was still tall, dark and mysterious and he could have passed for a human if it hadn’t been for ram antlers poking out of his deep brown scraggly hair that covered his red, goat eyes, pointy ears and muscular stag legs. He wore a goatee, had broad, muscular shoulders and arms, and overall looked like a middle-aged man in his thirties.

“If there is anything I can do to help you reach Delphini faster, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Of course,” said Harry brightly. “Would you like to stay for dinner? I was just about to start preparing it.”

“As long as you have some raw steak on hand,” he retorted politely. He almost sounded like a gentleman … and it _really_ irked Tom’s nerves.

Harry went to the kitchen to start preparing dinner and left him with Ethan. Neither of them spoke. Over the months of Delphini’s engagement to Ethan, he had learnt to stay silent if he didn’t have anything nice to say to his future son-in-law. It wasn’t that he hated him, but he also didn’t like him. There was something … _unnerving_ about him, but as long as his daughter was happy with him, he supposed he could live with having the Lord of the Forest for an in-law.

There was another knock and he went to open the door: it was Barty, Sirius and Severus, carrying boxes.

“Good evening, my Lord,” greeted Barty, “we’ve managed to obtain all the ingredients from the list you gave us.”

He opened the door further and let them inside. “Put the boxes on the coffee table in the living room,” he instructed them and they obeyed. He followed them.

“Sirius,” he clasped the man’s shoulder, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“Harry mentioned that you have thoroughly cleaned Grimmauld place some years back, but tell me; have you also done the same to the attic?”

Sirius frowned in confusion. “Yes, we have cleaned it and moved stuff around to fit in more stuff. Why do you ask?”

Tom let out a disgruntled sound. “Nothing,” he snapped irritably, “I was hoping you hadn’t touched it, there was a runic ritual circle I was eager to analyse and some potions as well.”

Sirius gaped at him. “How do you know there was a runic ritual circle and potions in the attic if you have never been there?”

“An hour or so ago, your godson’s younger counterpart appeared in our attic, covered in a variety of potions that smelled worse than Alexander’s diaper,” he said gravely. “He claims to have been playing hide-and-seek with his friends at his godfather’s – your – attic and he told me that something flew at his face, startled him and he knocked over a shelf full of potions that, in all likelihood, reacted with the runic circle. The ground opened into an interdimensional portal and he fell through it. He also claims that the children are in his dimension … with my counterpart at Riddle Manor.”

Barty, Sirius and Severus were flabbergasted.

“There’s another Harry here right now?” asked Sirius full of excitement.

“Yes, fourteen years old, a week ago my counterpart kidnapped him to a graveyard for resurrection.”

“And he’s living with another me?” his voice broke a little.

“It would appear so,” he said curtly, not wanting to dwell on such inconsequential details at present, “but that’s not what matters right now. What matters is for you to find what runic circle was in the attic and to get me all the potions that were – or still are – on the shelf Harry’s counterpart knocked over.”

Sirius drew in a shaky breath and blinked away the tears that gathered in his eyes. “Okay, I’ll go through the family library and look for runic ritual circles. The potions won’t be hard to procure since I haven’t really moved them at all from the shelf.”

“Excellent. Bring the potions here tomorrow and as soon as you find something on the runic ritual circles, bring it here immediately. Harry said not to rely on his younger counterpart’s memory, but maybe if he sees the general shape and outline, he’ll be able to remember which circle it was.”

He had to try it … it couldn’t hurt to try to find a faster way to get to his and Harry’s children.

…

After Ethan, Severus, Barty and Sirius left at half past eight, Harry and he decided to check on Harry’s counterpart. The boy was sound asleep on his stomach in Salazar’s bedroom, wearing Salazar’s clothes, with his face half-buried in the pillow and the glasses askew.

His husband sat next to his younger self’s sleeping form, gently removed the greasy glasses, cleaned them, and put them on the nightstand. Then, he ran his fingers through the messy black locks and leant forward to leave a kiss on the boy’s temple.

“Sweet dreams, Harry,” he whispered, leaving the room with the empty tray and closing the door.

…

When Harry woke up the next day, a glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand told him it was nine o’clock and 2 July 2017. He yawned, stretched like a cat and rubbed his eyes to chase away the remnants of sleep. Then, he reached for his glasses, put them on and remained lying awake, gathering his bearings for another few minutes.

Once again, he came to terms with the fact that he had indeed travelled to another dimension, a dimension where Voldemort and Harry were married and had six children together. Not to mention that he was a horcrux, the bearer of a piece of Voldemort’s soul.

Was that why he was able to understand and speak Parseltongue? Was that why he could dream about Voldemort through his pet snake’s eyes? He recalled something his counterpart said to him the day before, about him sharing dreams with Voldemort, talking to him while asleep. Could he do the same with the Voldemort from his dimension? If so, he could talk to him and ask him about the children so he could relay the information back to his counterpart and Voldemort. He could be a messenger of sorts until they found a way to get him back to his dimension and the kids back to theirs.

Feeling pressure in his bladder, Harry got up and headed towards the bathroom. However, when he reached for the handle of the door he thought led to the bathroom and opened it; the strong, musky scent of sweat and something else hit Harry’s nostrils and a sight he would never forget greeted him: his counterpart on all fours being mounted by Voldemort – Tom.

That wasn’t even the worst part. What made the image in front of him worse were the embarrassingly lewd and wanton moans coming out of the other Harry, whose face was scrunched up in pleasure, the low and husky groans of Voldemort, who was pounding into his husband with abandon, and the squelching and slapping sound of skin against skin that resonated within the room.

Harry stood there, rooted to the spot, blushing furiously, and his eyes almost fell out of his sockets. Unable to speak and move, he stared at the pair before him, unsure whether to feel horrified or aroused by what he was witnessing.

To his horror, the other Harry opened his glazed eyes and saw him standing at the door. “Harry!” he exclaimed, shocked to see him there. Voldemort stopped thrusting and looked straight ahead at him as well.

Whereas his counterpart felt ashamed to be seen in such a position, Voldemort smirked wickedly. He manoeuvred them so he was lying on his back, with the other Harry’s back pressed against his chest, his legs spread wide over his thighs.

“What are you doing, Tom?” the other Harry demanded weakly, breathlessly, as Voldemort put his stretched and filled ass on display for him. Before he could protest further, Voldemort dug his heels into the mattress and thrust roughly into him, making his head fall back as a throaty moan of ecstasy escaped his lips.

Voldemort’s movements were rough and deliberate, all the while staring fixedly at him. Harry gulped, staring back, hypnotised by the red eyes.

“ _Do you like what you see?_ ” he hissed in Parseltongue and he gave a particularly hard thrust, eliciting a moan from his husband. Harry shivered as well and felt his own cock twitch in his trousers. “ _Do you like how nicely my cock stretches your counterpart’s ass?_ ” he prompted, pulling his husband’s cheeks apart. “ _I certainly like how tightly he fits around my cock, how hot he feels and I can assure you he also likes being stretched and filled._ ”

To illustrate it, he began a harsh and quick rhythm, reducing his husband to a limp, whimpering and writhing mess. One of his hands snaked to the front, coiled around his counterpart’s erection and began to stimulate him. The other Harry was incoherent and Harry felt like combusting from seeing himself in the throes of passion in Voldemort’s arms.

“ _And the best part is,_ ” continued Voldemort, in a deep, raspy whisper, “ _when he tightens up around me and I flood his insides with my sperm and knock him up. He looks so beautiful carrying my children._ ”

“Tom,” the older Harry cried, shuddered and came in long white spurts all over his chest, as if the idea of getting pregnant for the seventh time was enough to push him over the edge. Voldemort hugged the other Harry and held him in place as he kept fucking him until he bit into his shoulder, let out an animalistic growl, and came deep inside him, his balls throbbing, pumping his seed into his husband.

Harry’s underwear was wet from pre-come and he was painfully hard, yet he was also mortified beyond words. He had just witnessed Voldemort and the other Harry fuck … and he _liked_ it. He liked it _a lot_. There was also something inexplicably hot about Voldemort speaking in Parseltongue during sex, yet he also felt angry for some reason. No, not angry, bothered … _jealous_ of his counterpart.

With a lewd pop, Voldemort slid out of his counterpart, leaving behind a gaping, well-fucked hole. He peppered kisses and whispered praise to his husband, who turned his head towards Voldemort and sought out his lips. Voldemort eagerly kissed him, gently stroking his hair.

When those intense red eyes, radiating satisfaction and bliss, turned to him again, Harry wished for the ground to open and swallow him, but also to be in his counterpart’s place, cradled between Voldemort’s arms.

Some of the come leaked out of other Harry’s throbbing and sensitive hole and he almost came in his pants, while his own empty, not-stretched and not-fucked virgin ass quivered longingly around thin air.

A lazy smile curved Voldemort’s lips and, as if reading his thoughts, he said, “You can be in the same position too, you know. Just don’t resist my counterpart when he makes his move … or you could be the one to make your move. I can assure you he won’t mind a bit of Gryffindor straightforwardness.”

His legs finally moved and he tumbled out of the room and hurried to the bathroom, which was the door right next to the master bedroom, to relieve himself.

…

“I can’t believe you fucked me in front of my younger self,” ranted Harry mortified, his flushed face buried in his hands while Tom gently soaped his back and shoulders in the bathtub.

He chuckled and placed a kiss on his nape. “You liked it,” he pointed out, whispering into his ear and licking his earlobe.

His consort shivered and goosebumps covered his delicious skin. “I know,” he whined. “I still can’t believe I actually got aroused while being watched by a fourteen-year-old me.”

“He liked watching it too,” he whispered huskily. “Should have seen how greedily he looked at us and how hard he was. I even saw some jealousy directed at you.”

“His stay here is going to be so awkward from now on,” lamented Harry. “All because you had to be an insufferable prick _again_ and tease my younger counterpart.”

“It’ll be as awkward as you and he make it out to be,” he said, pouring some water over Harry’s shoulders.

While his consort was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he had sex in front of his younger self, Tom decided the bathtub was the perfect place for another round of sex. It had been a while since they made love in the tub, with Harry kneeling and grabbing the edge, while his vigorous thrusts made the water splash around them.

…

Breakfast was a _curious_ affair, with the younger Harry refusing to look at his older self and Tom, his consort trying his best not to make things awkward by trying to make small talk, and Tom reading the _Daily Prophet_ completely unfazed by the tense atmosphere in the dining room.

At some point, Harry gave up trying to establish a conversation with his teenage self and instead focused on his breakfast. Harry’s younger counterpart cleared his throat. “Uh … I’ve been thinking,” he began nervously, cheeks painted red, still avoiding eye contact with them, “since you two can speak to each other in dreams because Harry is your horcrux, I suppose the same is true for me and Voldemort, right?”

“Yes,” he drawled, “though I don’t know if it will be possible for you to communicate across dimensions.”

Steeling himself by clenching his teeth and fists, the boy looked up at them, scowling. “I want to try it,” he said with determination. “I want you to teach me how to seek out Voldemort while asleep.”

“Why?” his husband asked confused.

“Because …” he began and stopped, looking for words to articulate his thoughts, “if I do this, if I succeed in contacting him … I can ask him about your kids and relay any messages you might have for your children while separated.”

Harry and he stared at the boy, too stunned to say anything.

“My connection with Voldemort could be the link between you two and the children while you look for ways to bring them back and to send me back home.”

Harry rose and walked around the table to embrace his teenage self tightly, his face buried in the teen’s messy hair. Tom remained seated, scrutinising the boy in front of him and feeling something akin to gratitude.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered, fighting to keep tears at bay. “Even if it doesn’t work because of the distance, I still want to thank you for offering something like this. You don’t know how much hearing from our kids would mean to us.”

The teen looked uncomfortable, for he flushed brighter still, but he managed to hug back his older counterpart and send a timid smile their way.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_2 July 1995, 9:30_

The giggles and squeals of Lana, Iphigenia and Catriona filled the air, as they ran around the manor courtyard in their new clothes, playing a modified game of tag with Barty who was currently chasing them, where the captured person had to sit and wait either for their playmates to release them or become the accomplice of the one chasing. Meanwhile, Delphini, Salazar and Voldemort were sitting under a tree shade not far from the other four. Alexander was exploring the nature nearby, in their line of sight.

“Delphini,” Voldemort called out to his eldest, “how did your parents get together?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Haven’t you and Salazar ever investigated it out of curiosity?”

“I _have_ investigated it,” she said sending a sharp and annoyed look his way. “And I can’t say I like what I’ve found in official records.”

“What do official records say?” he insisted.

She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. She let out a sigh as she turned her gaze to Alexander and began narrating. “They say you kidnapped dad in June 1996 alongside his close friends – Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom. They say you forced him into marriage by threatening to kill his friends if he did not do as you said. They say you raped him repeatedly, because how else were we supposed to have been conceived if not through rape.”

Voldemort stared in shock at her, wide-eyed and speechless. He cleared his throat. “And … do you believe the official records?”

“No,” she snorted, “there’s no way father forced dad into marriage and sex, but … they also don’t wish to tell us how they really got together, so, I suppose that there is _some_ truth in those official records.”

“Why are they so adamant to keep the beginning of their relationship a secret?” wondered Voldemort.

Delphini sighed and shrugged. “No idea, you would have to ask them if you ever get the chance. Alexander, don’t put snails into your mouth,” she called out sternly when she saw the toddler pick up a snail by the shell and try eating it.

Alexander begrudgingly obeyed and let go of the snail.

“And what can you tell me of your father’s reign? What are some of the things he’s done in the past twenty years or however long he’s been in charge?”

“Well … he’s done a lot of things since becoming Emperor Lord Voldemort. He set up three schools, one primary school for magical kids regardless of their blood status where kids learn about magic and the magical world so they can better integrate themselves into the wizarding society, one school for squibs after Catriona was born and one parent school for muggle parents, where they learn how to raise a magical kid.”

Voldemort raised an eyebrow.

“At first, he wanted to take muggleborns away from their biological parents, but after becoming a father himself and my kidnapping, he changed his mind and decided to educate the underqualified parents instead. Dad really appreciated that.”

“And besides opening schools, what else has he done?”

“He has improved the status of squibs in the wizarding society after Catriona’s birth,” said Delphini.

“And he has reformed the entire school and foster care systems,” said Salazar, his gaming console forgotten.

“Really? How so?”

“Well, you have already heard that Hogwarts is no longer a boarding school.”

“What about the orphans?”

“They go to foster families,” interjected Delphini. “Father has done his best to eliminate orphanages, partly from his own experience and partly because of the psychological muggle studies on the devastating effects on child development. Muggle psychological studies are also the reason why he changed Hogwarts from a boarding school to a day-time school.”

“Since when has he become a good Samaritan?” he snorted and sneered.

“He hasn’t,” Delphini deadpanned. “He’s still far from being a good Samaritan or a people person. In fact, I strongly doubt that he’ll ever be, but he’s certainly of the mind that the changes he makes will form emotionally and mentally stable and satisfied subjects, which according to him means a stable and peaceful country. However, if you ask for my honest opinion, he made most of the changes because of us and for us, to make our lives easier and better, and of course, to please dad. I suppose dad rewards him very nicely for any positive changes he makes.”

“Yet, you still face assassination attempts.”

“Those are the OGs,” said Delphini dismissively, “those who still remember what it was like when he was pretty much a genocidal megalomaniac and they have a bone to pick with him or an occasional foreign dark lord who thinks invading Britain under Voldemort’s rule is a wise idea. The younger generations, the ones born during father’s reign, have no reason to begrudge him so they don’t cause any civil unrest or make attempts on his life or the lives of his family.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “But still, I don’t understand why there is so much unrest, when things look to be better than they’ve ever been.”

“That’s because he’s _Lord Voldemort_ and because it wasn’t always this good,” said Delphini. “At the beginning, father was determined to keep muggles and wizards separated. He didn’t do a lot for squibs in the first five years of his reign – the same goes for muggleborns –, but when he passed the Squib Act, most of his pureblood followers tried to overthrow him and kill him together with his family. It goes without saying what he did to those insolents.”

“Not to mention that you have an inferi army consisting of your fallen enemies that you use to defend the country from outside threats and all the nasty nicknames you got over the years due to how cruel you can be in your punishments,” added Salazar.

“Nicknames?” he asked intrigued. “Such as?”

“Voldemort the Cruel, Voldemort the Terrible, Voldemort the Bloodthirsty, Voldemort the Enslaver of Dead, Voldemort the Destroyer of Civilisations,” enumerated Salazar.

“Destroyer of Civilisations?”

Salazar and Delphini suddenly looked sullen.

“About thirteen years ago, some Italian dark lord wannabe attacked dad when he was pregnant with our brother James Sirius,” narrated Delphini gravely.

“The loss devastated him so much he refused to have another child for years and father sought revenge by killing the culprit, as well as destroying Italy’s economy and military in his dragon form,” said Salazar. “The number of casualties was also very high … newspapers all over the world were writing about the Great Italian Massacre.”

There was a seventh child of Voldemort and Harry, or at least, it would have been if it had been carried to term. Another boy, named after what he assumed were Harry’s father James Potter and Harry’s godfather Sirius Black. A sudden feeling of soul-consuming emptiness seized his chest.

“Alex, don’t put dirty hands into your mouth,” Delphini called out when she saw the toddler about to place one of his dirt-covered thumbs into his mouth.

Again, the toddler begrudgingly obeyed and lowered the hand he tried to insert into his mouth.

“Is that why there’s such a large age difference between Catriona and Lana?” Voldemort asked.

They nodded.

“Why did they decide to have more after all?”

They shrugged.

“Again,” said Delphini, “you are asking us things we don’t know. Maybe dad wanted more children because he missed being pregnant. Our parents do seem to have some weird fascination with pregnancy. I would go as far as saying they both have a breeding and pregnancy kinks.”

“What does that mean?” he inquired with an arched eyebrow.

“It means that our father gets aroused by the prospect of inseminating dad and dad gets aroused by the prospect of being inseminated by father,” deadpanned Delphini. “In simpler terms, father likes knocking dad up and dad likes being knocked up by father.”

Voldemort looked at his daughter in stunned silence. How did he get to such a low to have developed an obsession with getting Harry pregnant? What was so exciting about the prospect of bringing children into the world anyway? Nothing; that was what!

He would have to be careful not to sink so low too. If he and Harry ever got together intimately after the boy returned back to his own dimension, there was only going to be one child, maybe two, never six or seven.

“Okay,” Delphini’s voice brought him out of his thoughts, “we’ve answered your questions, now it’s only fair that you answer some of our questions.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What would you like to know?”

“For starters, I would like to know what Albus Dumbledore was doing here yesterday. It was him, wasn’t it?”

He let out a sigh and answered, “Yes, it was him and he came to offer me a truce … and to tell me that Harry Potter – your bearer’s counterpart – is missing.”

“WHAT?” Delphini and Salazar yelled.

“What do you mean he’s missing?” she demanded further.

“According to Dumbledore’s theory, he somehow travelled to your dimension and is currently staying with your parents,” he explained calmly.

“How did he travel?” wanted to know his daughter. “He couldn’t have used the same method as me, because I’m the one who invented it and I don’t exist in this dimension or timeline.”

“I don’t know, Dumbledore didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.”

Delphini cursed in Parseltongue under her breath and frowned.

“You’re going to help him get back, aren’t you?” asked Salazar.

“That’s the idea.”

“Then get me the potion ingredients from the list I gave you,” Delphini declared. “The sooner we make the potion, the sooner we will all be able to return to our respective homes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure whether I should tag the work with the following tags 'accidental voyeurism', 'breeding kink' and 'pregnancy kink' since they appear in the chapter and the last two kinks are a thing with Tom and Harry throughout the story (regardless of dimension). I probably should just to be safe, so, I'm adding the above tags to this work. 😊
> 
> Also, Harry using his connection to Voldemort because of the horcrux to communicate across dimensions so he can supply his counterpart with news of his children is a huge reason I had Harry travel to the other dimension and not stay in his own and play house with his Voldemort, because otherwise both Harry and Tom from the other dimension would have gone a bit coo-coo without any news of their children for a month and it also gives me the perfect excuse to mirror certain things the other couple went through in their relationship - like starting a relationship through the horcrux link and a few other things too. 😉
> 
> Not to mention that you're probably wondering how I managed to make a country ruled by Lord Voldemort sound like a paradise if everyone were obedient and never opposed him. I mean setting up a school for muggle parents to teach them parenting skills so they can raise their magical child in a safe and loving environment. Like WTF, right? Well, I want to think that parenthood would do some weird things to him - but again that's just me and how I see his character. 😅 My Lord Voldemort is learning empathy thorough experiencing things as a father and as a father (who is very much involved with everything that goes on with his kids) he would not want to see her squib daughter viewed as second-rate or have his children taken away from him then have all memory of pregnancies and their family life wiped clean from his mind (which is something he was doing for a while and yeah, not his best moment as a ruler 😕 but he improved with time which is good for him 😃). Still, regardless of all the positive changes he puts in place or how he improves as a person to some extent, I still want the bitter people to stay bitter and despise him for his past actions no matter what.


	12. The Horcrux Link

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry attempts to establish the horcrux link with Voldemort. The emphasis is on attempts. Both Tom and Harry help him, each with a different approach. Meanwhile, Voldemort has another interesting conversation with Dumbledore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise update! A Valentine's Day special! 🎉🎉🎊🎊✨✨
> 
> I didn't say anything, because I really wanted to surprise you with an unexpected update. 😄 Please, enjoy it and comment! 🥰😘

_Riddle Manor I_

_2 July 2017, 13:05_

“Focus,” said Voldemort’s – Tom’s – baritone voice, making Harry’s mind race with images of sex between him and his older counterpart in the morning.

“I _am_ focussing,” Harry snapped impatiently.

He was squeezing his eyes tightly shut. With his brows firmly knitted together, he did his best to shift his thoughts to the snake-like Voldemort that came out of the cauldron at the graveyard instead of the human sex god that his counterpart was married to and got to enjoy all to himself.

They were alone in the man’s office, while Harry’s counterpart was doing the washing up downstairs. He would join them once he was done, but for now he was blessed – or cursed – to be alone with the good-looking, middle-aged Tom Marvolo Riddle.

“On the wrong thing,” insisted Tom. “Or should I say on the wrong Voldemort.”

Immediately, Harry felt his cheeks heat up. How did Tom know? He wasn’t even looking him in the eyes!

“As flattered as I am to know that I have made such a strong impression on your mind, I am not the one you have a connection with, Harry. That privilege belongs to my counterpart and you would do well to picture _him_ instead of me in your head.”

“He looks like a snake,” Harry complained. “He’s been haunting my nightmares.”

Eerie silence fell between them. Then, Tom commanded him to look at him and Harry let out a muffled scream when he came face to face with Voldemort’s snake-like features inches away from him. His eyes were wide, filled with fear, and his heart beat like a hammer in his ribcage. This was the first time after the graveyard incident that he was face to face with the man who hurt him.

Tom – Voldemort – had him caged in the armchair he was occupying, regarding him with a cruel smirk. “I can still make myself look the way my counterpart looks in your dimension,” he whispered darkly. “Because I am still very much Lord Voldemort, Harry, don’t you forget that.”

He let go of the armrests and – still looking like Voldemort – leaned on his desk, his arms crossed. “Now that I look like this, you should have no problems focussing on the correct Voldemort.”

Harry gulped, he was pale and his hands were all clammy.

“Close your eyes,” instructed Voldemort coldly, “and imagine the Voldemort that kidnapped you a week ago, had you tied to a gravestone and used your blood to obtain a body.”

Harry trembled, cold sweat running down his back. Voldemort waited for him to close his eyes, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to recall the feeling of powerlessness he felt that day.

Voldemort clicked his tongue. “You’re not ready,” he declared gravely, returning to his chair behind the desk. “You’re not ready to establish the horcrux link. Not even by a long shot.”

“No, wait,” Harry called out desperately, standing up. “I can do it. I _will_ do it. I promised you and Harry.”

Voldemort regarded him coldly. “How?” he snarled, narrowing his eyes. “How do you expect to contact my counterpart when you can’t even bring yourself to seek him out in your thoughts?”

“I just need time,” he insisted.

“How much time? A day, a week, a month?” Voldemort rose as well and was towering over Harry menacingly. “By the time you’re going to be ready, we’ll already have found a way to get the children back and get you to your godfather.”

“What’s going on?” the older Harry asked casually, walking into the office. “Tom, why are you using your Voldemort look?”

Voldemort’s snake-like features disappeared and he looked like middle-aged Tom Marvolo Riddle again. “I was trying to help your counterpart visualise my counterpart, but the kid is not ready yet. He’s still too shaken by last week’s events.”

The older Harry approached him and gently guided him back to his armchair. “Harry,” he said gently, sitting on the armrest next to him, carding his fingers through his hair. “Don’t push yourself. Nothing will come out of it if you force yourself to do it.”

“But … how will you get news about your kids, if not through me. I have to do this.” Harry protested.

His counterpart smiled at him and stroked his cheek. “No, you don’t have to do anything. You feel like you have to do it, but you don’t. Tom and I would be extremely grateful if you did it, but you are not obliged to do it, if you don’t feel ready to face the Voldemort from your dimension.”

A knot formed in his throat and he couldn’t get out any words. Instead, he felt like crying. Hot tears of frustration gathered in his eyes and he blinked them away.

“Come here,” said the older Harry. He sat in the armchair and manoeuvred him into his lap, cradling and hugging him, as if he were a child in need of comfort. He buried his face into his counterpart’s neck and held onto the other Harry with desperation.

He remained like this for minutes until he had found his voice again and spoke: “Would you show me how you do it?”

“Sure,” he said brightly. “I bet I’ll be more considerate and patient than Tom.”

Tom huffed. “Fine,” he snapped, “meanwhile I’ll start working on the dimension-travel potion. I reckon it’s going to be done faster than your counterpart establishing the horcrux link with my counterpart.”

Harry went bright red in the face.

“Don’t mind Tom, Harry,” the other Harry said softly. “He’s only saying this to be a prick. Feel free to ignore him when he’s being insufferable.”

“I should remind you that you fell in love with this prick, literally and figuratively, love,” sneered Tom.

“Yeah,” he readily agreed, “I am in love with you and your prick. I’ve been in love with both for over twenty years and I reckon I’ll remain in love until the day that I die no matter how much of an asshole you can be sometimes,” he concluded cheekily, winking at his husband, and to Harry’s enormous surprise that seemed to shut Tom up with a light pink blush coating his cheeks.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_2 July 1995, 13:32_

Voldemort was in his study, awaiting Dumbledore’s visit. He had sent an owl to him a few hours ago with the list of ingredients for Delphini’s dimension-travel potion and a brief additional note that said nothing but ‘ _Buy this as soon as possible!_ ’ He didn’t even sign it, but he was certain that Dumbledore would recognise the handwriting as his.

“My Lord,” Barty said, opening the door, “Dumbledore’s here.”

He let out a sigh. “Send him in and make sure the kids stay in their rooms and don’t attempt to eavesdrop. I still don’t want Dumbledore close to them, much less talking to them and asking them questions.”

“Of course, my Lord. I will keep an eye on the children.”

Moments later, Dumbledore strode into his study, wearing the same genial smile as usual. “I was surprised and happy to receive your owl, Tom,” he began sitting down across him. “However, I must confess myself a bit confused as to what this list of ingredients is about.” He produced the list he mailed him.

Scowling, he answered, “The eldest of the children has brought a recipe for a dimension-travelling concoction she developed with her. She needs those ingredients to start working on it. She tells me the recipe makes for two doses, the children will use one to go back home to their parents and Harry will use the other dose to return here.”

“How wonderful!” Dumbledore exclaimed, his eyes twinkling in excitement. “I will get my hands on the ingredients.”

“Good,” he nodded. “As for the money, Lucius will finance the whole thing.”

Dumbledore chuckled heartily. “He won’t like that one bit.” His eyes were still shining in amusement.

In spite of himself, Voldemort smirked viciously. “I know. That is why I am making him pay. It’s either that or eternal torture for enabling the destruction of my diary horcrux.”

“Ah, yes,” sighed Dumbledore. “I do recall him being responsible for your diary ending up at the school among Ginny Weasley’s belongings.” His expression became severe. “I hope you will not begrudge Harry for defending himself against a fellow horcrux. It was between him and the diary … and the boy chose himself.”

His own expression darkened. “I won’t begrudge him for destroying the container, but is there a possibility for the soul piece to still exist in the Chamber?”

Dumbledore sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I am no expert on horcruxes, Tom. However, you are welcome to check for yourself. I wouldn’t mind you visiting now that the summer holidays have started and verifying with your own eyes the state of the Chamber.”

Voldemort was stunned. Dumbledore was letting him visit Hogwarts to survey the state of the Chamber. His last visit to the school was when he came to apply for the Defence teaching post and received a negative response for the second time in a row. Overcome by anger and bitterness, he cursed the position as well as hid his diadem horcrux in the Room of Hidden Things.

Voldemort nodded casually. “I’ll stop by in the following week.”

“Excellent,” Dumbledore beamed at him. “Oh, and while you’re there, would you mind removing the curse from the Defence teaching post. It is getting quite tiresome having to put out yearly job application advertisements.”

Voldemort snorted. “Will you give me the teaching post if I remove the curse?” he taunted.

“Given how low the interest is, if you were the only applicant, I would have no choice but to give you the job, no matter how fit or unfit you were for the job.”

Voldemort raised his eyebrows in shock. Then, he chuckled humourlessly. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Do think about it thoroughly, Tom,” said Dumbledore, his expression serious. “You know what they say, third time’s the charm, but I warn you now, if you do decide to apply, there had better be no Lord Voldemort or Death Eaters. It is either teaching or continuing your ambition to be a Dark Lord, but you cannot have both. If you decide to become a professor at Hogwarts, you will look out equally for _all_ students, regardless of their genetic and socio-economic backgrounds – pureblood, mixed, squib, muggleborn, rich, middle-class, working-class, poor – and you will not openly show favouritism or discrimination towards anybody. I also don’t want you sharing and spreading any harmful ideas that might give somebody else any dangerous ideas.”

His gaze turned sharp and cold and Voldemort stared blankly back at Dumbledore.

“When can you get the ingredients?” he asked stiffly instead to change the subject of their conversation.

“In a day or two, I do have contacts in all sorts of places.”

Voldemort nodded. “Good, because the potion needs a month to prepare and brew and the sooner we get it done, the better.”

“Agreed,” Dumbledore smiled kindly again. “I don’t suppose you would allow me to have a word with your eldest.”

“No,” Voldemort instantly shut him down.

The old man sighed. “I figured as much. I do hope that eventually you’ll trust me enough to be around your children.”

“That remains to be seen,” he drawled with narrowed eyes.

Dumbledore got up and headed for the door. “I’ll take my leave then and I’ll have the receipts mailed to Lucius Malfoy to cover the expenses. Until next time, Tom.”

Voldemort nodded stiffly, but said nothing. Calling on Barty, he had Dumbledore escorted out of his house.

…

_Riddle Manor I_

_2 July 2017, 13:28_

Leaving Tom to brewing the potion in Delphini’s lab, Harry and his older self went upstairs to Salazar’s room, where they sat on the bed to discuss the horcrux link between the older Harry and his husband.

“So,” he began, “the best way to describe the link between Tom and I is through a thread that starts at the centre of our chests and connects us together. Through that thread, we can feel each other’s thoughts and mood. In addition to that, we can also share dreams and use this as a means of communication.”

Harry listened to his older counterpart with rapt attention.

“After over two decades of being aware of the connection and using it daily, we’re both well versed in it, so we don’t need to be asleep to communicate,” continued the older Harry. “However, at the beginning, the link mostly depended on a _relaxed_ and _open_ state of mind, which usually translated to us both being asleep. Visualisation also helped a lot, not just the visualisation of the other, but just being aware of yourself. Because when you are aware of your own being, when you see that thread sticking out of your chest, it’s enough to follow it and you should be able to reach Voldemort without any problems.”

Harry felt hopeful. “So, I don’t have to think about Voldemort per se?”

The other Harry chuckled. “No, you don’t have to picture his snake-like features to establish contact.”

“Then why was your husband so adamant on having me picture the Voldemort from my dimension?” he asked, frowning.

“Because that was the technique he used primarily to invade my mind during the early stages of our clandestine relationship. He would go to bed, thinking about me, picturing me vividly in his mind and when he fell asleep, he would suddenly find himself in my mental landscape, accosting me.”

Harry gaped incredulously at his counterpart.

“Uh … can I ask you something?” he said, clearing his throat.

“Of course, ask away,” smiled his older self encouragingly.

“If your husband looked like Voldemort does in my dimension right now, how did you become attracted to … you know … his snake features?”

The other Harry laughed. “I suppose I just got used to him looking like that. Besides, once he actively started to pursue me, I was busy concentrating on other things.”

“Like?”

A mischievous glint appeared in his counterpart’s eyes. He leaned closer and his voice dropped to a whisper. “How good his lips felt against mine, how amazing his hot tongue felt against my skin, how sexy and arousing his voice sounded, how his hands were caressing my body, how his cock was moving inside of me.”

The arousing images of Tom and Harry having sex that morning flashed before Harry’s eyes again. He blushed furiously, eliciting a laugh from his other self. He wanted to bury his face into the nearest pillow. His counterpart ruffled his hair.

“You’re so adorable. Give it a few years and you will understand just how amazing a relationship with Tom-slash-Voldemort can be once you get past the fact that we were once enemies and that he killed our parents.”

The mention of his parents sobered Harry a bit. “Have you forgiven him?”

The other Harry smiled softly. “I have, long ago.”

“How?” Harry couldn’t comprehend how his counterpart could find the strength to forgive Voldemort the murder of his parents. “Did he apologise? Did he regret it?”

The other Harry shook his head, with the same gentle smile on the lips. “None of the sort, but just because he can’t bring himself to say the words, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel shame and regret for what he did to me and his own soul. I also didn’t want to be angry and bitter about it, constantly reminding him of our messy joint past, when we could both enjoy life and each other to the fullest. Therefore, in my heart and mind, I’ve forgiven him around the same time I decided to be truly selfish for the first time in my life and accept him as my husband and father of my children.”

“Do you ever find yourself questioning your life choices and decisions?” wondered Harry after a while. “Do you ever regret your relationship with Voldemort? Do you ever wish you had waited a bit longer before getting married and having your first child? Have you even finished Hogwarts?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head again. “Never. I wouldn’t change anything about my relationship with Tom. I don’t regret loving him or marrying him, or getting pregnant the first time we had sex for real on our wedding night, or only getting my OWLs and dropping out of school before I got my NEWTs, or being a househusband. Just like I don’t regret taking that womb-forming potion the moment he offered it to me after that entire Ministry debacle, with the promise of giving me the family I have never had and have wanted more than anything in this world. I know that I was fifteen when I initiated my pseudo-sexual relationship with him; that I had my first child at sixteen, but it worked out for Tom and me, and that’s what matters. Maybe the way we got together won’t work for you two,” he said, referring to him and the Voldemort from his dimension, “and you might want to wait a couple of years before doing anything remotely sexual if you don’t feel comfortable with intimacy right now, and that’s okay. You _don’t have_ to mirror us and get married when you turn sixteen and you _don’t_ _have_ to become a parent nine months after that and you _don’t have_ to drop out of school just to follow in Tom and I’s footsteps. You can go about your relationship however suits you two best, because you are yourselves not Tom and I.”

Harry swallowed thickly.

“All right,” his other self clapped, “enough talking. Would you like to try the horcrux link for yourself?”

He nodded.

“Okay, then lie down,” the other Harry instructed and he obeyed. He lay down on his back. “Close your eyes.” He closed them. “Relax and just concentrate on yourself, on your breathing, on your limbs, on your body, on your mind.”

He breathed slowly and deeply, but nothing happened.

“Sometimes it helps to have relaxing music playing in the background,” said his counterpart and put on some meditative music and he tried again.

He was aware of his limbs, his body, of the air coursing through him, but he failed to see the thread the other Harry mentioned. With a frustrated groan, his eyes snapped open and he pressed the heels of his palms against his forehead. “It’s no use,” he growled impatiently, angry at his own inability to do something so simple. “I can’t see any thread coming out of my chest.”

The older Harry sighed. “It’s okay, you’ll just keep practicing, and eventually you’ll get there.”

“No, it’s not okay!” he snapped.

“You also didn’t succeed in casting the Patronus on your first try or your second or third one,” reminded him his other self. “Be patient. Try it before bed and don’t get frustrated if you don’t get any results tonight.”

Harry’s nostrils flared as he took deep, forced breaths through his nose, trying not to feel annoyed and incompetent.

“Okay,” his other self sighed, “here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to spend the rest of the day together, relaxing and talking about whatever interests you to know about this dimension. What do you say?”

Harry looked sceptically at his counterpart. He knew that the other Harry was trying to distract him, get him to think about something that wasn’t trying to get through to Voldemort across dimensions. However, he was also full of questions, full of curiosity to know what a world with Voldemort ruling Wizarding Britain looked like, what became of the people he knew, of his friends, his family.

“All right,” he agreed, sighing resigned. “Let’s talk, but I’m warning you now that I have a lot of questions. Are you sure you’re ready to answer all of them?”

The older Harry laughed heartily. “Bring it on, Harry,” he challenged and with a grin, Harry began his long line of questions.


	13. Knowledge is Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two Harrys talk about Voldemort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter can be interpreted in different ways.

“What sort of ruler is Voldemort?”

“Strict, but has his family’s and the country’s best interests in mind, even if some are still deeply convinced that that’s not the case,” answered the other Harry. “And as long as nobody attacks him or his family, he has no reason to torture and kill anybody.”

“So … has he improved anything?”

“Oh, yes,” said his older counterpart excitedly, “plenty of things. Again, not because he’s suddenly developed love for humanity, but because the positive changes he implements benefit our family and the country in the long run, even if others don’t see it that way.”

Harry nodded. “And what are some of the things he’s changed for the better in your opinion?”

“Squibs and Muggleborns are not treated as second-class citizens anymore. He has established three new schools – a magical primary school for magical children to learn about our world before Hogwarts, an institute for squibs and a school for muggle parents and relatives where they learn how to raise a magical child – and he even provided a magical day care centre for working magical and non-magical parents. He has abolished orphanages and instead he insists on every orphan to be adopted as soon as possible, either by the child’s relatives or by any other fit person.”

Harry listened to his counterpart with an open mouth. “Why?”

“After we finally managed to convince him to allow muggle technology in the house, he started paying more attention to muggle scientific developments and he found several studies on the detrimental effects of orphanages and boarding schools on a child’s mental and emotional development. Consequently, he abolished the orphanages and fully converted Hogwarts into a daytime school. Although, he had already made it a hybrid school when our firstborn started Hogwarts, because we couldn’t really reconcile with the idea of having our children board at Hogwarts for most of the year when we could have them at home every day after class, every weekend and holiday.

“Just like we never quite understood why the parents couldn’t witness the sorting or why it had to be done for the entire school to see and judge, so, Tom made some adjustments and made the sorting an affair for teachers, first years and their parents only on 31 August instead of 1 September. The beginning-of-term feast on 1 September was also reformed. Now the students arrive at nine o’clock sharp to the school, where Minerva welcomes them with a speech in the Great Hall, and as the Emperor, Tom also says a few words. After that, all the teachers introduce themselves one by one and the subjects they teach, what they expect from the students in their classes and so on. Then, each head of house takes their students to their homeroom classrooms where they hand out schedules and provide basic information about school life in general – when Hogwarts was a hybrid school, there was also a dorm tour for those that were boarding, but now there are no dorms anymore. At noon, they have the feast, which is just a very big lunch and then they go home and their lessons start the next day,” narrated his counterpart and Harry listened to his narration with fascination.

Although hearing Voldemort changed things around because he wanted to be present for his children’s sorting or have them at home every day was so like him that Harry wasn’t even surprised to hear it.

“Another thing that Tom introduced and that I really like,” continued the older Harry enthusiastically, “is the tutor system, where every fifth year gets paired with a first year from a different house. For example, a Slytherin fifth-year student can be paired with a Hufflepuff first-year student or a Gryffindor fifth-year student with a Slytherin first-year and so on and so forth, and these tutors are responsible for helping their respective first year get around the castle, help him or her with studying and homework, and things like that. He did that to promote inter-house and underclassmen-upperclassmen relations and to make Hogwarts castle experience less frightening for first-year students, because the size of Hogwarts is overwhelming and getting from classroom to classroom extremely stressful when you have no idea where everything is and where you need to go. The first years also like this arrangement and usually the tutors and the mentees become close friends and stay in contact even after Hogwarts, so this really helps forge valuable bonds of friendship as well.”

“If things are as great as you say they are … why do you make it sound as if there are still people who are unhappy with the current state of things?” he wondered confused.

“Because that’s just how people are, ungrateful for what they have, always craving more, and because it took Tom a while to get to where he is now as a ruler, where I can safely say that he is a good Emperor. For example, he hasn’t really done anything for squibs until we had a squib in the family.”

Harry’s eyes almost popped out of its sockets. “What?”

“Yes, Catriona, our third child, is a squib, Harry. If Tom hadn’t passed the Squib Act – which was met with a lot of pureblood opposition, mind you – our daughter would have been home-schooled, reduced to a human version of a house-elf or used as nothing but a broodmare for some pureblood family struggling with infertility.”

Horror overtook Harry’s being and he shuddered at what he was hearing.

“Before he became a father and before Delphini was kidnapped,” continued the other Harry grimly, “Tom had no qualms over taking muggleborn children away from their non-magical parents and placing them into foster magical families, because in his mind, he was preventing the abuse non-magical parents and relatives would inflict on the magical child.”

He sighed. “Then there’s the fact that Tom has hurt a lot of people, he’s destroyed a lot of families, and those who still feel the effects of his past actions aren’t happy to have him as their Emperor no matter how beneficial his laws might be for them, because no amount of reforms can return them what he took from them. Add to that outside threats and you get a rule that is plagued with civil unrest, assassination attempts and kidnappings.”

“Assassination attempts?” Harry exclaimed.

The other Harry nodded. “There’s one at least once a year, sometimes Tom is the only target, and sometimes the targets are the children and me.”

“Who would try to kill children out of spite?”

“The same kind who wouldn’t hesitate to sell a child to a brothel with paedophiles as customers,” said his counterpart with hate burning in his emerald eyes.

When he told him about Lana almost suffering such a fate at six years old, Harry felt his stomach turn and bile rise in his throat as the same repulsion and hatred burned inside his veins. “Bastards,” he growled, his eyes flashing murderously, “I’m glad Tom killed those sick fucks.”

His older self nodded with a grim look on his face. “The only downside of that entire ordeal was that he ended up collapsing from overexertion. Gave me quite the scare when I saw him bleeding and faint. I was surprised he didn’t combust because his skin was boiling.”

“Is he a good father?”

His older counterpart smiled. “For someone who grew up without parents and without any notion of love, he’s done a darn good job at raising our kids. He has been there for all the births, mostly to distract me from the pain with gentle words, caresses and kisses, but when Delphini was born, emotions overwhelmed him and he cried when he held her for the first time, because it finally registered in his brain that he was a father now. He has helped me a lot during each pregnancy, always looking out for me, making sure I always had everything I needed and wanted – from food, sleep to sex –, that I was comfortable. Once the kids were here, he helped me with the diapers, the feeding, and the bathing. He has been here for all the crucial milestones – their first teeth, their first words, their first steps, their first school day –, and all the birthdays. He has taught our kids to read, write, count and do basic math. He has read them magical fairy tales while I have read them muggle fairy tales. He even played with them, whenever the girls asked him to play doctors and patients, shop assistants and customers, pirates, chefs and sous chefs – with Tom being the sous chef of course. Although, Delphini’s form of play at two years of age was pretending she was at school and that her papa was a teacher, and Tom loved it too. That was like his favourite thing for a while, just sitting there in his study at his desk with Delphini in his lap and teaching her how to hold a quill and a pencil and how to write with them, because he finally had his chance to be a teacher, even if a pre-school one and only to his daughter. And the rest of our children when they were old enough to start learning of course, but none showed as much enthusiasm and passion for learning as Delphini.”

He laughed and smiled lovingly at the memory. “It’s a shame we didn’t have a camera back then to take a picture or a video of the two of them in his study, which they pretended was a classroom.” He sighed. “Or how she would pack her tiny school bag with a couple of notebooks and a pencil case and put it on her back and declare in her cute serious voice that she was going to school, where papa was going to teach her how to read, write and do math.”

While Harry didn’t have a photo or a video to see it, his counterpart’s narration was so vivid and real that he didn’t need either to visualise Voldemort, with his serpentine features intact, cradling a small girl that looked like a miniature version of Tom Riddle, who was very eager to learn the basic skills from her father. In his mind’s eye, Voldemort’s voice was kind and gentle as he patiently and lovingly guided Delphini through the motions and steps of writing and reading as well as adding and subtracting small numbers, praising her for performing well and gently correcting her mistakes, feeling proud of her progress and rewarding it.

It was an absurd image without a doubt. An image of dreams and fantasies, but this was real. That had happened. Voldemort – the other Voldemort anyway – had really done something like that. Why did that make Harry’s heart and stomach flutter? Why did he find the idea of Voldemort as a loving father so appealing, despite how ridiculous and alien the notion was? It didn’t make any bloody sense! The two things – loving and caring father and Voldemort – shouldn’t go well together, but they did, frighteningly so.

“How could I not fall in love with Tom all over again whenever he did something nice for the kids and me?” His counterpart’s voice brought him out of his musings. “For all his faults, I could not have asked for a better person to spend the rest of my life with and to have children with, because I can’t imagine – and I don’t want to imagine – a life without Tom at my side and the kids we have together. As cliché as it sounds, he’s the man and the love of my life. He’s my soulmate and I am his. He’s far from perfect, but I love him all the same, with all the ugly bits too.”

The words struck Harry deep. They cut into his gut, into his chest, into his soul, until he couldn’t breathe and think and a sudden urge to cry had overcome him, and he didn’t even know why. He felt tears sting his eyes, his throat burn, but he refused to shed tears. Not in front of his counterpart.

“All in all,” the older Harry continued, “he _adores_ the kids and he would do _anything_ to keep them safe, and I do mean anything, no matter how gruesome or bloody. Tom will always place the safety and well-being of his family above anything else, even if he can be extremely strict … especially with Salazar, but he’s mellowed out a bit towards him recently as well, after their heart-to-heart conversation two months ago.”

He trailed off as a melancholic look snuck into his eyes. “However, in the past two years or so, he’s been … distant … absent, more concerned with work than his family. He would rather attend a Ministry meeting than watch Lana’s judo competitions or Catriona’s dance competitions until the end.”

He let out a frustrated sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “I know we record everything and that he can re-watch it later when he has time, but that’s not the point. The point is for him to see his daughters succeed in person, not through a video. Lana and Catriona train hard, it’s only fair that we accompany them to their competitions and watch them show off their hard work.”

Harry nodded, agreeing with the older Harry. “Would you mind showing me pictures and videos of your family?” he asked him tentatively. After listening to his counterpart talk so lovingly and enthusiastically about the family he had with Tom, he wanted to see it for himself. He wanted – needed – to see all those moments that he told him about.

The other Harry beamed at him. “I would love to show you everything. Come,” he pulled him by the arm, “let’s go downstairs to the living room. We keep all our family photo albums and family videos there,” he said excitedly.

Harry let him drag him downstairs and he couldn’t suppress the smile that spread across his lips at the excited tone of his other self. They started with the photo albums where thousands of static and moving pictures were detailing the family life of the Riddle family. His older self launched into a detailed narration of each photo, providing the setting and the context – sometimes even full dialogues – behind each picture.

He was not surprised to note that the other Harry had kept the ultrasound pictures of his children while they were still inside his magically formed womb, however, he was confused by the fact that there were three ultrasound pictures of a seventh child: James Sirius. Right between Catriona and Lana.

He was about to ask his counterpart about it, when he saw the profound devastation on the other’s face, eyes welled with tears, and he felt the question shrivel up and die in his throat. After all, he didn’t really need to ask what had happened, all the other children had eight or nine ultrasound pictures attached to their name and a date of birth written next to it. James Sirius only had three and no date of birth.

A broken, muffled sob escaped the other Harry and he closed his eyes and covered his mouth with a hand. Harry felt horrible. He reached out to place a comforting hand on his counterpart’s shoulder, when the door to the living room burst open and he jumped away, glancing at the door with a panicked and guilty sort of look.

Tom stood in the doorway, looking concerned and murderous all at once.

“We were just looking at family photos, when we got to the ultrasound pictures of the children and uh …” Harry rambled nervously.

In a few steps, Tom was beside his husband, pulling him into an embrace. The other Harry instantly held onto him with desperation, burying his tear-stained face into his shoulder, his anguished sobs wrecking his body.

“I’m sorry for bringing up bad memories,” said Harry weakly, feeling like a monster. “I just wanted to know more about your children.”

Tom didn’t say anything, but the look he was giving him, made Harry wish he could disappear.

“Don’t be angry with Harry, Tom,” sobbed his counterpart. “He’s not at fault.”

“You’re crying, because you’re reliving painful memories that the pictures you two were looking at evoked,” snarled Tom, snatching up the photo album from his husband’s lap, snapping it shut and placing it on the coffee table. There was pain reflected in the ruby red eyes as well as he comforted the other Harry.

Harry looked away from the intimate and painful scene, fighting back his own tears.

“Go get a glass of water,” ordered Tom and Harry obeyed, thankful for the opportunity to get away. By the time he returned, his older self had stopped crying, but was still curled up against Tom, with his eyes closed, gently sniffling, while Tom gently stroked his hair.

He cleared his throat. “Here’s the glass of water you asked for,” he said, holding out the glass to the other Harry, who took it gratefully.

“Thank you,” he rasped, his voice hoarse from crying, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

Harry remained standing, fidgeting with his hands and shuffling his feet. He excused himself by saying he needed to go to the toilet and, while he really needed to use the loo, it was also an excuse to give the much-needed privacy to the couple.

…

The other Harry found him lounging on Salazar’s bed some time later. “Are you hungry?” he asked him gently.

“A bit,” he lied. In fact, he was starving.

“Would you like to help me in the kitchen?” he suggested brightly. “We could continue our discussion.”

Harry looked at him. “I don’t think it would be a good idea,” he muttered. “I don’t want you to have another crying fit.”

His counterpart let out a long sigh, closed the door and joined him on the bed. “It’s not your fault, Harry.”

“But it is,” he snapped. “I asked you to talk about your children without even realising that you had lost one before it was even born.”

“Like you said, you didn’t know about my miscarriage, because I didn’t tell you about it. Because even after thirteen years, it still hurts like hell, and it won’t stop hurting until the day that I die.” His voice quivered and he saw him fighting back fresh tears.

“How did it happen?” Harry ventured to ask.

“During one of the assassination attempts,” he said with a distant voice, “some Italian rival wanted to debilitate Voldemort by killing me off, so he could invade the country. He failed to kill me, but he succeeded in killing the child I was carrying. I was three months along, have just found that it would be a boy, have picked a name for him in honour of my father and godfather, only to have him taken away from me by some Italian dark lord wannabe.”

He broke down crying again and Harry panicked. He hugged him. “Please, don’t cry, your husband will come bursting in here, ready to murder me for making you cry again.”

His counterpart burst into another wave of tears instead and Harry looked towards the door fearfully, expecting to hear enraged footsteps on the stairs and corridor, but nothing happened.

“Tom knows that I want to tell you about it and he knows that I’ll cry talking about it, because there’s no pain quite like losing a child, Harry,” he hiccoughed.

“I can only imagine how devastated you must have felt back then and how devastating it feels now that the other six are not here,” Harry said, crying as well.

“You have no idea and I hope, Harry – I hope from the bottom of my heart that you never have to experience such pain yourself.” A fresh wave of tears and sobs left the other Harry as Harry continued to hug him.

“What happened with the bastard who attacked you?”

“Tom hunted him down and ripped him apart, then, still not satisfied, he transformed into his animagus form – a giant black dragon – flew over to Italy and started destroying the country, incinerating people, the military, the fleet, the air force, crucial buildings such as banks, factories, and electric and nuclear plants, the fields where people grew food. He pretty much destroyed the entire country. They still feel the effects of his assault. The economy and the population still haven’t recovered from the crisis and it has been thirteen years since it happened.”

Harry knew he should have been horrified to know that innocent people have paid for the act of one person, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel disgust or fear, because this was probably Tom’s way of grieving, his way of dealing with the helplessness he must have felt, the impotency of not being able to prevent such a tragedy.

It was wrong, inexcusable, but who was he to judge when he wasn’t even a parent himself, much less a parent who has lost an unborn child to cold-blooded murder.

“I’ll help you see your children and talk to them,” Harry assured him, determined to succeed in his endeavour to contact Voldemort. “I’ll do everything in my power to let you see them and hear about them.”

If the death of James Sirius affected his counterpart this badly even after thirteen years, he didn’t even want to imagine the anguish he must have felt when he saw that the other children were missing as well, and if there was a way for him to lessen that anguish, he would do everything in his power to help.

…

Tom was leaning against the wall, next to Salazar’s room, with his arms crossed, eavesdropping on the conversation between his husband and the boy. He recalled the conversation he had with Harry, after the boy had left for the bathroom.

_“Why are you doing this?” he asked confused. “You know you always end up an emotional wreck after remembering the miscarriage, so why are you making yourself remember?”_

_“I want him to understand, Tom,” returned Harry._

_“I thought you said he didn’t have to succeed in contacting my counterpart,” he reminded him._

_“I lied. Do you honestly believe I would renounce a chance to get hold of our kids?”_

_“Of course not.”_

_“I only said that because I know myself, Tom. I know I don’t work well under pressure, but I do work well when things get personal. Therefore, if Harry understands how awful I feel without my children, he will find the motivation to succeed in establishing the horcrux link with your counterpart, no matter how traumatised he is by the graveyard ordeal.”_

_“Such a Slytherin thing of you to do,” he teased, pressing his lips to his consort’s temple, holding him close and inhaling his scent._

_“It’s not about being Slytherin or Gryffindor, Tom,” assured him Harry. “I couldn’t care less about any of that. It’s about being a desperate parent, willing to do_ anything _in my power to get hold of our children.”_

Smirking to himself and sending soothing thoughts to his consort, he headed back towards Delphini’s lab to analyse the potions Sirius had brought him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our darling Harry is being bombarded with this weirdly appealing image of Voldemort and it's both thrilling and overwhelming for him. It won't be long until he's having a breakdown, because the two images are in conflict in his mind. Especially after that whole 'man and love of my life, my soulmate and loving his ugly bits too' Harry got from his older counterpart.  
> And the other Harry scheming to get to his children by purposefully talking about painful topics to him to make his counterpart emotionally invested in his situation. The pain is genuine of course, but the timing is premeditated, but honestly who can blame him. 
> 
> Also, I really do see Papa Voldemort eager to teach his children how to read, write and do a bit of math. He doesn't have to be a Hogwarts teacher, when he has his own preschool children to raise and teach the basics. I will definitely include the memory the other Harry was talking about in the prequel. Toddler Delphini and her Papa are too cute to pass up. 🤗 I also see him changing things around just because he and Harry want to have children at home and see them get sorted as opposed to just hearing about it from the kids.


	14. Little Hangleton, Death Eater Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry learns about his friends then masturbates to Tom and Voldemort, Voldemort is trying to learn string figures (but is failing miserably) and look for an alternative job, and Lana has a temper tantrum because of her father's paperwork and wrestles him into bed for some well needed sleep.

The other Harry hugged him fiercely, thanking him profusely. Wiping away the tears from his eyes and blowing his nose, he had collected himself enough to say, “Let’s head to the kitchen and get started on dinner.”

“Okay,” he returned awkwardly, but got up and followed the older Harry downstairs.

“Is there anything in particular you would like to eat?” his other self asked him.

“Uh … not really. I’ll eat anything you prepare for me. I’m not a picky eater.”

His counterpart chuckled.

As they were peeling and cutting potatoes to roast in the oven together with some chicken thighs, Harry couldn’t help but ask, “What of my friends and my godfather? Are they well?”

“Oh, extremely well,” assured him the other Harry. “Sirius is married and has three kids.”

“Really?” he frowned, unable to picture his godfather, the fugitive, as a married man much less a father of three. “Who did he marry?”

“Severus Snape, who now goes by the name Severus Black.”

Harry’s eyes almost fell out. “Snape and Sirius?” He couldn’t believe it. He thought they _hated_ each other. “How did _that_ happen? They can’t _stand_ each other.”

“I know, mental,” agreed his other self, “but I’m not exactly one to talk about it when I’ve gone and married Voldemort so … yeah. All I can say is that life works in mysterious ways, Harry. People you would never picture together are suddenly married and happy about it.”

“What about Ron and Hermione? Did they end together?”

“No, they were never together. They are happily married to other people and have children of their own as well.”

“Who are their spouses then?”

“Hermione married Barty Crouch Jr while Ron married Draco Malfoy.”

“Malfoy and Ron?” he repeated horrified. He swayed a bit and pressed a hand to his forehead. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”

“Why would I be joking?”

“Because Ron and Malfoy _hate_ each other,” he emphasised, “and now you’re telling me they are happily married with kids!”

“Well at least they only have two kids – Scorpius and Hugo – with a third one on the way; Hermione on the other hand has nine.”

Harry felt faint. He let go of the potato and knife he was holding and sat down in the nearest chair. “I don’t feel good,” he complained faintly. “I need to sit down for a moment … or two.”

His counterpart sent a sympathetic look his way. “You’ll get used to it, just like how I got used to it and how they got used to it. If you wish, we can go visit them tomorrow; they live in the same village after all, alongside Ginny who married Rabastan Lestrange.”

Harry frowned. “Isn’t Lestrange a Death Eater just like Barty and Snape?”

The other Harry nodded. “Draco is one too,” he added.

Harry’s eye twitched. “Why are my friends married to Death Eaters?”

“It’s a long story,” his counterpart sighed, “and I don’t think you’re ready for it.”

Harry narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Does it have anything to do with Voldemort capturing them alongside you? Did Voldemort marry my friends off to his Death Eaters?” he demanded angrily.

“You could say that, yes. However, you would have to ask each couple for more details, because I don’t exactly know what happened between my friends and the Death Eaters while they were imprisoned. I just know that they weren’t being tortured, raped, starved, or cold. They were treated like guests, not as prisoners.”

“Who did Neville and Luna marry?”

“Luna married a widowed Rodolphus Lestrange and moved to Lestrange Manor while Neville married Fenrir Greyback, who later turned him into a werewolf.”

Harry paled. “Neville is a werewolf?” he breathed faintly.

“Yes, it was so that he would be able to give birth to werewolf children.”

He pressed his fingers to his temples and massaged them. His head was ready to burst from all the information. Remembering Professor Lupin and the discrimination he faced, he couldn’t help but ask, “Are werewolves still discriminated against?”

“No, they aren’t, but they don’t exactly mingle and co-habit with human beings. They have their own schools, jobs, housing, entertainment and health care centres.”

Harry let out a sigh of relief. “At least that.” Although, he still wasn’t thrilled to know that his friend was turned.

His counterpart finished cutting potatoes into wedges, sprinkled the seasoned meat and potatoes with olive oil and placed the casserole into the preheated oven.

“Was the transformation forced upon him?” he asked in a small voice.

The other Harry sat down next to him. “No,” he said gently, “he had a choice and he chose to join Greyback’s werewolf clan.”

Harry nodded and silence enveloped them. Tom was apparently still in the lab. “How long will it have to bake?”

“At least forty-five minutes,” his older self said.

“How come three of my friends live in the same village as me? I can understand Hermione and perhaps Ginny, but Malfoy and Ron … I would have thought they would live at Malfoy Manor or something equally luxurious.”

“Well,” sighed the other Harry, “Ron didn’t want to live under the same roof as Lucius and Lucius disapproved of the marriage altogether because Ron is a Weasley – or was a Weasley – so Draco ended up buying one of the bigger houses down at the village, which has become deserted over the years, mostly because of the muggle-repelling charms. Not to let the village go to waste, Tom let most of his trusted Death Eaters buy a house and live there with their spouses and families.”

“So … Little Hangleton is like a mini Death Eater village, is that it?”

His older self laughed heartily. “You could say that, yes.”

Harry’s nostrils registered a horrible smell. He grimaced and gave a few extra sniffs, before gagging and covering his nose. “What’s this horrible smell?” he croaked. “It can’t be the food burning; we barely even started roasting it.”

His counterpart also sniffed the air and had pretty much the same reaction. Just then, they heard footsteps and Tom appeared in the doorway, with a bubblehead charm over his head acting as some sort of gas mask, smelling worse than dragon dung.

“Tom, love,” said the other Harry through his pinched nose, “perhaps you should go take a bath before dinner. You still have forty minutes before the food is ready.”

“You think,” he said sarcastically, not at all pleased.

“Would you like me to help you?”

“You know I’m never opposed to joint baths,” he smirked seductively and winked at him.

His counterpart got up, cast the bubblehead charm over his head and said to Harry. “If Tom and I are not back in forty minutes, could you please keep an eye on the food and turn off the oven when the meat and potatoes turn golden brown?”

He cleared his throat, trying hard not to picture them having sex in the bathtub, and said, “Of course.”

“Thank you,” his other self beamed at him and Harry felt himself flush as the two men disappeared upstairs to bathe and probably have more sex. The worst part of it was that Harry was tempted to follow them and spy on them through the keyhole.

Minutes passed by and somewhere along the halfway mark, he heard the faint sound of water splashes and moans of pure ecstasy coming from somewhere above him.

With the image of Tom’s cock buried deep inside his counterpart’s ass, stretching it and pounding into it with force, his own cock twitched and stirred, his cheeks heated up again and he buried his face in his arms.

As the moans continued and his erection kept getting worse, Harry decided to take the opportunity to undo his trousers, free his dick, close his eyes and touch himself imagining himself in his counterpart’s place, with Tom’s strong arms around him, whispering dirty things in Parseltongue into his ear, fucking him hard and fast.

Harry whimpered and moaned Tom’s name. He was close, he could feel it, but when he was about to reach the delicious high from that morning, Tom’s human features shifted to Voldemort’s snake features. When Voldemort called out his name in Parseltongue instead of Tom, Harry’s entire body jerked and shuddered, his loins tightened and he came into his hand, moaning Voldemort’s name.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_2 July 1995, 19:02_

He pulled the last string. “Like this?” he asked his two daughters, who shook their heads exasperatedly at him.

“No,” said Lana bluntly. “This looks _nothing_ like the witch’s broom I showed you, papa.”

She took the string from him. “Now, again, for the _fourth_ time, look closely at what I’m doing. Even Barty was able to do it on his third try and you call yourself a Dark Lord. Disgraceful.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I can assure you, Lana, that being able to do string figures and play Cat’s Cradle is not included in the Dark Lord qualifications.”

She looked blankly at him. “Well, it should be.”

He was in the sitting room, playing Cat’s Cradle and doing string figures with Lana and Iphigenia, while Salazar was playing a game called _The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild_ on his handheld console and Catriona was watching him. Alexander was roaming around the room, exploring the surroundings.

“So, you start with the string behind the thumb and the pinkie and in front of the other fingers,” Lana was explaining slowly, showing him the procedure, when he suddenly heard a scraping noise.

“What’s that?” he asked, looking around and not seeing Alexander anywhere.

Salazar and Catriona looked up as well. “It’s Alex,” said Salazar casually, nodding his head over to a bookshelf behind him. “He’s biting the bookshelf.”

Horrified, Voldemort was on his feet and, sure enough, he saw the toddler gnawing at the wood, chipping away at it, leaving bite marks behind. In an instant, he was by the toddler’s side, picking him up. “Don’t eat wood, Alexander,” he admonished him.

“He’s not eating it, he’s just biting it,” said Salazar unfazed.

He frowned deeply. “I don’t see a difference. He’s putting things that have no place doing inside his mouth in his mouth,” he snapped.

“He’s always done it,” said Catriona softly. “It’s just how he deals with teething and it keeps his teeth sharp.”

Voldemort gaped in astonishment at his squib daughter and at Alexander, who had flushed cheeks and felt a bit feverish to the touch. “I think Alexander is ill,” he said, worried, touching the boy’s forehead.

“Give him to me,” said Catriona and he handed him over to her. She gently pried his mouth open and inspected it. “He’s not ill, he’s teething,” she concluded. “While most of his teeth are out, there are a few that are still missing. Look,” she pried the mouth open again. He looked closer. “The gums are red and swollen there at the back.”

Alexander let out an irritated sound and began fussing a lot. Catriona soothed him and headed with him to the kitchen. When she came back, Alexander was eagerly chewing on a damp and cold kitchen towel.

“There,” sighed Catriona, pleased with herself, “all better now, Alex, isn’t it?”

The toddler nodded and she pressed a soft kiss to his temple and sat down with him in her lap, letting him rest his head against her chest. Voldemort returned to Lana and Iphigenia who were waiting impatiently for him to continue their strings game.

Just when Voldemort was about to attempt the witch’s broom for the fourth time, Delphini bellowed from the kitchen, “DINNER IS READY!”

“Food!” exclaimed Lana and Iphigenia. They were up on their bare feet, racing towards the dining room, making it sound like an indoor thunderstorm.

With a sigh, he tucked the looped string into his robe pocket, then herded the rest of his children to the dining room.

…

“Would you like it if I were a Hogwarts teacher?” Voldemort asked in the middle of the dinner.

Everyone, Barty included, stopped eating to gape at him incredulously. Then, Delphini burst out laughing as if he had told a joke. He did not appreciate her reaction to a serious question. The others looked confused and unsure as to how they should react.

“Have I said something funny?” he inquired, scowling.

“Hilarious,” wheezed Delphini, doubling over, red in the face.

“I don’t see how me being a Hogwarts teacher is funny. It would be a good alternative to being the Emperor,” he reasoned.

Delphini snorted. “You mean to say that it would be a _terrible_ alternative. Because let me tell you that being a Hogwarts teacher while Hogwarts is still a boarding school is a _terrible_ job for someone who wants to have any notion of personal or family life. Just look at the teachers that are at Hogwarts right now,” she exclaimed. “How many of them are married?”

He couldn’t name a single married Hogwarts professor.

“How many Hogwarts teachers have children?” she insisted further.

Zero.

“How many of them have any out-of-school personal life aside from maybe some short-lived summer romances, or one-night stands? Not many, I reckon. _If_ any,” she announced importantly. “As long as Hogwarts is a boarding school where teachers have to co-habit with other people’s kids and watch over them twenty-four-seven, any semblance of your own family and love life is utterly impossible. You would have more luck working as a professor at some Muggle university if you want to teach.”

She took a bite of her pizza.

“I’ll mention it to Dumbledore,” he said, cutting up his slice of pizza.

“I doubt he’ll do anything immediately,” she muttered sceptically. “Even when our father made Hogwarts a hybrid school, there were some who were absolutely against it, saying it is against school tradition or some other such rubbish. When he made it impossible for parents to leave their children at school overnight, they made it seem as if some great blasphemy had been committed towards them. As if,” she snorted derisively. “The only thing that happened is that now parents had to act like actual parents and take care of their own kids every single day, not have other people raise them.”

“So what do you suggest I work as, if not the Emperor or a Hogwarts teacher?”

“Honestly,” she sighed, “find some job you can do from home. Maybe become a writer of crime novels featuring serial killers, grim dark epic fantasies where dark lords succeed and the heroes fail or romance novels between a hero and a dark lord or between demons and angels. I’m sure your writing and plot will be compelling enough to become an instant bestseller.”

He stared at his eldest in horror. The Great Lord Voldemort reduced to a … _romance_ novelist. He shuddered internally, every cell in his body recoiling at the thought of writing some cheesy love confessions or passionate sex scenes. He didn’t even know what sex looked or felt like!

What a disgrace that would be!

…

_Grimmauld Place II_

_2 July 1995, 15:36_

“Are you sure about this, Ron?” asked Hermione tentatively, watching her friend sign the letter.

“Positive, Hermione,” he announced confidently, folding the paper and sealing it inside a handmade envelope.

“Just like how you were certain that Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin back in our second year?” she said sceptically.

He waved a hand dismissively. “That was back when I was young and naïve. This time, I am _sure_ that Voldemort has managed to kidnap Harry. How he has done it escapes my comprehension, but we _have_ to get Harry before the man does irreparable damage to our friend.”

He knew he was the one who insisted on Harry going to Voldemort, but that was before his best friend disappeared inexplicably while playing hide and seek in the attic. He remembered Harry being concerned over possible body experiments involving knives and needles and just imagining his best mate tortured at Voldemort’s hands for a bit of juicy gossip turned his stomach inside out.

“Dumbledore said that there was no kidnapping,” said Ginny, but Ron didn’t listen. He tied the letter to Errol’s talon and sent the owl off to its destination, hoping it wouldn’t die in mid-flight before he learnt the location of Voldemort’s base of operations.

Hermione exchanged worried looks with Ginny.

“Fine,” sighed Hermione exasperated, massaging her temples, “let’s hypothesise that Voldemort has Harry, and we have no clue as to where the man lives now that he’s back to having a body of his own. However, do you think asking _Draco_ _Malfoy_ of all people about Voldemort’s location is wise, Ron? Do you really think he even knows anything?”

“His father is a notorious Death Eater,” Ron pointed out. “Lucius was there when Voldemort took Harry’s blood to resurrect himself. He was there when Voldemort held a meeting where it was revealed that he has six children. So, yeah, Hermione,” he huffed irritably, “I do think Draco knows _something_. He’ll be a git about sharing information, but he knows enough for us to pinpoint the location on our own if necessary.”

“Fair enough,” Hermione conceded. “Let’s say we get the exact location from Malfoy. How do you expect us to get there?”

“We’ll borrow Harry’s cloak of invisibility to sneak out of here, without anyone noticing,” he said as if it was obvious.

“Aha, and then?” pressed Hermione. “How do we get to Voldemort’s house?”

“We’ll have Fred and George apparate us there. They’ll want to be involved, just like how they insisted on rescuing Harry from the Dursleys two years ago with the flying Ford Anglia.”

Hermione sighed. “It’s still a terrible idea and plan, Ron, but you’re right. If Harry is in trouble, we should save him, even if it means risking our lives. He would have done the same for us, after all.”

Ron beamed at Hermione, glad to see her agreeing with him.

“If mum ever finds out we’ve infiltrated Voldemort’s house, she’ll kill us herself for sure, if Voldemort doesn’t kill us first for sticking our noses into his private business,” grumbled Ginny.

“Well, that’s the risk we’ll have to take, won’t we?” said Ron brightly, feeling sick to his stomach.

…

_Riddle Manor II_

_3 July 1995, 2:45_

After tucking his children into their beds, Voldemort relished in the quiet that followed. He felt mentally exhausted from playing with his young daughters, who had enough energy for three people, and while the idea of sleep was very inviting, he remembered that he hadn’t touched his documents for the past three days – ever since his counterpart’s children arrived.

While it was true, that he had come to an implicit agreement of non-violence with Dumbledore until Harry and the children were back home, he still had plans he didn’t have any intentions of abandoning. He might be looking into alternative jobs, but until he had found something else, he would remain a Dark Lord, and Dark Lords had to take care of many things … tedious paperwork included.

Therefore, he rose up from the sofa in the sitting room and headed to his study, where he spent the next few hours, working.

Around three o’clock in the morning, the door to his study opened and in walked Lana.

“You’re still awake?” she demanded. “You should be asleep.”

“I could say the same to you. What are you doing awake?”

“I needed to pee so I got up and went to the toilet. Then, I was thirsty so I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and then I saw that the light was still on in your study so I went to check. And now I’m here.”

“Well, go back to your room and go back to sleep.”

He was about to return to his papers when a resound ‘no’ from Lana had him looking up at her.

“Excuse me? Are you disobeying me, young lady?”

“I’m not going to bed, until _you_ go to bed,” she insisted, scowling and crossing her arms.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh. “I’ll go to bed after I finish this. It might take me thirty minutes or it might take me an hour.”

Lana marched up to him and slammed her child hands on top of his documents with force. “No more work for you!” she snarled, looking menacing for an eight-year-old child.

The intensity of her words and actions stunned him for a moment, only for him to glower at his daughter for her insolence. She didn’t flinch or back down. She stared him down with an equally furious expression. He could definitely see what Delphini meant by ‘no sense of danger’. She even wrestled, kicked, scratched and bit her kidnappers, before they ultimately overpowered her.

“Lana,” he hissed through his clenched teeth, “don’t get in the way of my work.”

“I _will_ get in the way of your work!” she stomped her foot, enraged. “And if you don’t go to bed _right_ _now_ , I’m going to chug your bloody papers into the fireplace and set them on fire! Enough is enough!” Her whole body shook in anger.

Having enough of her tantrum, Voldemort grabbed her around the middle and draped her over his shoulder. The gesture surprised her and she let out a squeal. Seething, he carried her like a sack of potatoes up the stairs and, once he reached her room, he threw her on the bed and made for the exit, prepared to lock her inside until morning, only for Lana to latch onto his right arm and yank him back with a force he would never imagine an eight-year-old could possess.

On second thought, she did judo. Now he understood why she was at the top of her category.

He tumbled backwards onto her bed.

“Lana,” he snarled, trying to free himself and sit up, “let go this instance.”

“No!” she said, squeezing her eyes shut, latching onto him like a leech, weighing him down. “You’re not going to go back to working.”

“Lana,” he was mad, he was livid, but even in his anger-induced state, he knew that he had to hold back and not lash out with his magic or his hands, no matter how tempting it was. “You are being unreasonable!”

“ _You_ are unreasonable!” she yelled back, trying to wrestle him into her bed. At this point, if they continued this struggle, he would end up with a dislocated shoulder. “You need sleep, not work!”

“Stop this tantrum!”

“Not until you promise to _stay_ and _sleep_!”

Letting out a sound of frustration, he stopped struggling and caved into her demand. Panting, he lay down in her bed, facing the ceiling, feeling the veins in his throat and forehead pound furiously. “ _Fine_ , you little demon, you win,” he gritted. “I’m not going anywhere, now can you stop clutching my arm so hard, you’re going to break it.”

“Really?” she asked cautiously, her arms still holding tightly to his right arm and her legs around his waist. “You’re really not going to go back to work?”

Rubbing his eyes with his free hand, he let out another sigh. This one carried a note of resignation and acceptance of his current situation. The fury that was clouding his senses was also slowly dissipating, aware that the tantrum stemmed from Lana’s concern for his health and not because she wanted to be an insufferable brat.

“Really,” he assured her and she let go, half expecting him to bolt, but he stayed, unmoving. She curled into his side, hugging him fiercely.

“I love you, papa,” she whispered and he wrapped his slightly aching right arm around her lovingly, protectively.

“I love you too, Lana,” he whispered and pressed a kiss on top of her head.

“Sleep, papa,” she told him gently, patting his chest. “You can work tomorrow; the papers won’t go anywhere. They’ll still be waiting for you in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening.”

He snorted, an amused grin spreading across his face. She was right, of course.

“Goodnight, Lana,” he called, softly scratching her scalp with his claw-like nails.

“Goodnight, papa,” she returned and her small and warm body brought him peace and comfort.

In less than five minutes, they were both asleep and when he woke up at quarter to ten, he did so to his daughter’s bright greeting and her balancing a tray with his breakfast on it – cookies and warm milk.

A hearty laugh left his mouth as something akin to happiness bubbled inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lana is the best! 😂 Even Dark Lord Voldemort can't resist and win against his daughter, who's good at judo. But she's right, Voldie needs sleep and the papers won't suddenly grow legs and arms and go away. And then, she even brought him quality breakfast - cookies and warm milk - on a tray and in bed. Like ... Voldemort is living the time of his life right now 😆 
> 
> The other children are amazing too! 😍 I just love writing about the family dynamic they have with their father's counterpart and how Voldemort feels good with them around, even if taking care of six children (where one has ADHD) is exhausting.


	15. Harry’s Mental Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finally reaches the breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: the chapter contains depictions of a panic attack in combination with a nervous breakdown.
> 
> Also there is mention of some anatomical features Harry acquired with the womb-forming potion, like birthing canal and self-lubrication. Those of you familiar with mpreg and omegaverse know that in males, since they only have one hole, that hole acquires a secondary function and a birthing canal usually forms near the entrance. So, for those of you wondering how Harry gave birth to his six children, he gave birth naturally through that birth canal connected to his ass, and just like piss and sperm don't mix, the anus doesn't really interfere with the birth canal in terms of hygiene and all that and when Harry and Tom have sex, while they have anal sex (because men only have an anus), it's really Tom sliding inside the birth canal leading up to the cervix and the womb. 
> 
> Hope it's clear and if not, you can look up some Google images of mpreg anatomy and you'll get the gist. 😄

_Riddle Manor I_

_3 July 2017, 0:32_

Harry couldn’t sleep. The silence buzzed in his ears, the darkness stared back at him, yet, he couldn’t fall asleep. He tried meditating, finding the link to Voldemort, but he couldn’t concentrate either.

Maybe a glass of water would help.

With a resigned sigh, he got up and made his way to the kitchen as noiselessly as possible. He fumbled a bit in the dark, but successfully filled a glass with tap water and headed for the sitting room, where he sat down on the sofa, staring at the large TV screen, nursing his glass, sipping on the water.

Minutes snailed by and Harry remained wide-awake. He reached for the remote control and turned on the TV. Light blinded Harry’s eyes for a moment while a blast of sound that erupted from the speakers startled him, making him fumble with the remote to turn down the volume.

When there was nothing but a whisper, Harry listened to his surroundings, with his heart thumping furiously in his chest, hoping that Tom and the other Harry didn’t hear anything. A minute went by and there were no footsteps coming from upstairs.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Harry relaxed in the sofa. His eyes got used to the bright light coming from the TV, but there was nothing remotely interesting on television at this hour.

He got up, walked over to the shelf with DVDs, and looked through the selection of films that the Riddle family had.

Most of the discs were cartoons, from _Pink Panther_ and _Mr Bean_ to _Pat & Mat _and _Hello Kitty_. There were some live action movies, such as _Rush Hour_ trilogy, _Beethoven_ , the entire _Police Academy_ series and _Johnny English_ , and iconic British series like _‘Allo, ‘Allo!_ , _Keeping Up Appearances_ , _Only Fools & Horses_, _Black Adder_ , _Horrible Histories_ , _Art Attack_ , and _You Rang, M’Lord_? Finally, there was an entire collection of family home videos of the Riddle family.

Finding it far more fascinating than any movie, cartoon or series, Harry picked up the first volume and put it into the DVD player.

He got lost in the family life of his counterpart and Tom, marvelling and grinning at the domesticity, the happiness radiating from the people inside the screen. Tom and other Harry’s children were so distinct and full of life and their antiques had Harry suppressing a laughter more than a handful of times. Seeing himself – his other self – happy next to Tom and the kids had him aching for the same thing. Seeing Tom – so handsome, so manly – play with the children, openly show affection, laugh and smile, his ruby red eyes alight with adoration and love for his husband and children, had Harry wondering if the Voldemort that he knew was also capable of such expressions, of such emotions.

The only way to find that out would be by marrying him and having kids with him, but marriage and family were a life-long commitment and he couldn’t gamble his life away like that on a hunch and hope that Voldemort could be a good and loving husband and father.

‘ _Ah, but you don’t have to marry him and have kids with him to find that out,_ ’ said a small voice in his head. Voldemort was already acting as a stand-in father to Tom’s children and all Harry had to do was see him interact with Tom’s kids to determine his worth as a parent and partner, and he could do that by communicating with Voldemort mentally through the link.

The first disc ended and Harry changed it for the second one and continued watching. It was almost four in the morning now and he still didn’t feel sleepy at all. Perhaps he would pull an all-nighter.

Before he knew it, he was falling asleep on the sofa. When he was somewhere between consciousness and dream, he felt it. He felt something in his chest and when he looked down, he saw it too – the link. The silvery thread reaching out of his chest stretching somewhere into the horizon.

He followed it instinctively, with Voldemort’s name and image in mind. Yet, no matter how long he walked, he didn’t feel like he was making any progress; it didn’t feel like he was getting any closer.

Then, just as he was about to give up, he saw an outline. It definitely looked male. He sped up, but just as he was about to reach what he believed was Voldemort, he jerked awake.

…

Even after twenty years of marriage, waking up to Harry’s warm and naked body was the best thing that had happened to him … alongside being a father and having his children wake him up by calling him ‘father’ or ‘papa’.

Grinning sleepily, he brought his consort closer, and nuzzled his hair. He smelled of cinnamon and vanilla – an intoxicating fragrance that never failed to arouse him or calm him.

Harry began stirring and stretching in his arms, only to settle closer, their legs intertwined.

“Good morning, love,” he greeted groggily, his lips pressed to his forehead, where the faint lightning bolt-shaped scar rested on his husband’s skin.

With his eyes still closed, Harry smiled faintly and returned the greeting, snuggling into his side, his head resting on his shoulder. “Good morning.” His voice was rough from sleep and screaming himself hoarse the night before, moaning his name. Tom planned to have him screaming again in ecstasy in a few minutes.

Shifting so he was on his side facing Harry, Tom’s hands travelled down his husband’s back and rested on his firm, round ass. He gave it a squeeze and pressed his erect manhood against his husband’s morning erection, eliciting a high, throaty moan from Harry, who draped his leg over his waist, eagerly pressing his hips back into his, seeking the friction.

He captured his lips in a lazy kiss, just as Harry’s arms wrapped around his shoulders to hold him close. His tongue outlined Harry’s mouth, until it slipped inside the hot, wet cavern after receiving Harry’s warm and eager welcome.

Spreading Harry’s ass cheeks, one of his fingers pressed against the puckered asshole and, without much resistance, slid past the ring of muscles. Harry shuddered and gave another throaty moan. He gently prepared his consort’s hole, which was slowly starting to lubricate itself – a side effect of having a womb.

Once he was wet and stretched enough for his girth, he gently rolled Harry on his back, kissing his lips, his jaw, and his neck, and pressed the tip of his cock against his quivering entrance and slowly began to push inside the side canal leading to his husband’s womb.

A whimper escaped Harry’s lips at the same time as a growl formed and rumbled somewhere in the back of his throat. Tom’s eyes closed as the tight heat greedily engulfed his cock inch by inch, until he was fully sheathed inside his husband’s ass.

Harry held him closer still; his trembling legs spread as wide apart as possible to allow him better access.

“Tom,” he whined feebly. His fingers twisted inside his hair, gently tugging, gently stroking. Lust, longing, love and pleasure swirled in his emerald gaze. “I love you,” he whispered and his cock twitched inside Harry’s ass as joy bubbled inside his chest. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Harry,” he whispered back, nudging his nose against his and holding him tighter. His lips softly glided over his skin, leaving behind open-mouthed kisses wherever they reached.

The rough fucking session that Tom had in mind for the two of them quickly transformed into one of their tender lovemaking ones, where they showered each other with praise, affectionate touches and gentle kisses. While Tom still moved, his thrusts were slow, gentle and deep, driving Harry crazy just as much as fast, rough and shallow ones did.

Before long, he was biting into Harry’s shoulder as the force of a slowly built orgasm hit him fully and he shuddered – as did Harry –, spilling himself inside him at the same time as Harry reached his climax and he squeezed him tight, painting their stomachs and chests with his come.

They remained connected long after Tom’s cock stopped throbbing and filling Harry’s insides with his seed, basking in the afterglow of their joint orgasm, peppering each other with lazy butterfly kisses and feather-light touches that made goosebumps erupt all over their skins.

Harry snuggled closer, nuzzling his neck, sighing contentedly into his skin, his eyes closed and a sleepy smile adorning his face.

“Don’t go falling asleep, all right?” he teased him, holding him close.

“I won’t,” he assured him, his voice muffled. “What time is it?”

He glanced at the alarm clock. “It’s quarter past nine,” he informed him.

Harry hummed. “I should probably prepare breakfast,” he said. “Harry might be waking up soon.”

Sliding out of his consort, Tom carried him to the master bathroom where they bathed. By the time they were decent and headed downstairs, it was quarter to ten. They were on their way to the kitchen, only to stop and stare at the open sitting room door and listen to the hushed static noise coming from inside it.

“Did we forget to turn off the television?” Harry inquired him.

He shook his head. “Not to my recollection.”

They entered and saw that the television and the DVD player were on, but there was no picture or sound other than static. On the sofa, they saw teenage Harry; sound asleep in some weird, very awkward and very painful looking position.

“How can he sleep like that?” he asked his consort horrified. “Is he even breathing? He looks dead.”

Harry placed a hand under his counterpart’s nose. “He’s breathing all right.”

“Well, he won’t be for long. His neck will snap in two if he leans any more to the right.”

Harry reached out and gently shook the other Harry’s shoulder. “Harry,” he whispered softly, “wake up.”

In the meantime, he spotted an empty DVD case lying open on the coffee table and, upon picking it up and inspecting the cover, he saw that it was one of the family home videos. Shrewd ruby eyes turned on the younger Harry. So … he has been watching their family videos. What for? Curiosity?

At that moment, young Harry woke with a start, jerking forward violently, his breathing in disarray, and his eyes wide and wild, looking at his surroundings and at his chest. His right hand clutched at his heart. Then, his alarmed emerald eyes noticed them and he grabbed his consort. “I saw it,” he gasped breathlessly. “I saw it.”

Harry was rightfully confused. “Saw what?”

“The thread. The thread you were talking about; it was coming out of my chest,” the boy was saying deliriously, rubbing the centre of his chest absent-mindedly.

He was confused. He had no idea what the boy was talking about. However, Harry seemed to have understood the boy’s ramblings, for he seized the boy by the shoulders and grounded him in reality. “Really?” His voice was hopeful.

The boy nodded. “Yes, I followed it; I was about to reach the other end. I saw someone, definitely male – I think it was Voldemort – but I couldn’t make him out and, just as I was about to reach him, I woke up.”

The mention of his alias peaked his interest and the prospect of the boy almost establishing contact with his counterpart had him eager to know the details.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to him at all.” Anguished sobs tore from his throat as hot tears streamed down his cheeks.

Harry immediately sat next to the boy, pulled his counterpart to him and began soothing him. “It’s okay, Harry. You already did great by noticing the thread and following it. In a day or two, you will be able to contact Voldemort and talk to him.”

The boy buried his face into Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t even know how I did it,” he wailed mournfully. “What if I’m not able to do it again?”

“You will,” he assured him, but when Harry sought his gaze, there was a concerned look inside the emerald eyes.

Tom felt at a loss as well. He didn’t know what to say so that he didn’t make the situation worse. Letting out a sigh and passing a hand through his hair, he sat down on the boy’s other side, and ruffled his hair.

The boy stiffened and stopped crying for a second.

“Listen to me, Harry,” he told him. “You will succeed. You will succeed, because you are a powerful and talented wizard. You have already managed to catch a glimpse of him and you’re in a different dimension altogether.”

Young Harry was looking at him sniffling, his eyes red-rimmed from crying, his cheeks blotched, and his lips trembling. He looked so young and vulnerable. He _was_ young and vulnerable. Still traumatised by the graveyard incident.

“So what if it takes you a few days to do it,” he continued in what he hoped was an encouraging tone. “As long as you get through to the other Voldemort, that’s more than enough. If you manage to pass on the messages even better.”

His consort’s younger self burst into another wave of tears and he felt panic rise in his chest. Why was the boy crying now? Was it something he said? He didn’t even know why he said anything. Alarmed, he searched for his husband’s eyes and found only gratitude. So why was his counterpart hysterical?

“We have faith in you, Harry,” said Harry. “You should have faith in yourself as well.”

Young Harry leant on Harry again, crying with renewed zeal. “I feel s-so empty,” he sobbed brokenly. “And my c-chest hurts.”

Harry and he exchanged worried looks. “What do you mean empty and that your chest hurts?” asked his husband.

“I don’t k-know. It’s l-like now that I c-can’t see the thread c-connecting me to V-Voldemort, it feels l-like it isn’t there anymore and there’s a h-hole in my chest where the t-thread was and I f-feel horrible.”

Young Harry was shaking, with no signs of his tears slowing down.

“Should I call Luna?” he offered. She was a home healer; she could look the boy over and tell them if there was something physically wrong with the boy or if it was just something psychological.

“Do it,” nodded Harry, “I’ll stay here with him until he calms down.”

He stepped to the fireplace, threw some floo powder into it then stuck his head into the green flames and called at the Lestrange Manor.

Reynard Lestrange, the sixteen-year-old middle son of Luna and Rodolphus Lestrange, answered the call.

“Lord Voldemort,” he greeted respectfully, if shocked to see it was him calling to his home. “What can I do for you?”

“Reynard, is your mother at home?”

“She is, yes.”

“Go get her. Tell her I said that her presence as a healer is urgently required at Little Hangleton.”

Reynard nodded and he ended the call. Harry’s younger counterpart was still sobbing, not as heart-broken as before, but he was still far from calm. “I’ll get him some water.” He was seriously considering throwing in some sort of sedative, but it might interfere with Luna’s check-up.

Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door and he let Luna in. “Where’s the patient?” she asked immediately.

“In the living room.”

Without another word, she marched through the entrance hall and into the room, where Harry was cradling his other self. Luna’s shock at seeing whom Harry was holding was brief, for she immediately concentrated on inspecting the agitated boy with diagnostic spells, all the while asking pertinent questions.

After Harry had told her what had happened that morning, and that the boy was a dimension-traveller and a horcrux, Luna went silent and resumed her check-up, until she urged the teen to drink a calming draught. A minute later, he had calmed down.

“Was this his first time attempting a horcrux link?” she asked, consulting the roll of parchment with the boy’s vitals.

“No, he’s tried to do it during the day, but was unsuccessful, because he didn’t see the thread,” answered Harry. “This morning, he saw the connection, but he couldn’t reach the other Voldemort.”

Luna hummed and nodded, a slight frown marring her face. “While an unsuccessful try, the connection is still intact. The distance doesn’t seem to be affecting it in any way, though we might keep an eye on him just in case his physical health starts experiencing any problems because of the physical distance between the two linked parties.”

“What about the chest pain?”

“There’s nothing wrong with his lungs or his heart, therefore the pain has a psychological component.” She looked at the teen. “Harry,” she called gently to the boy, who turned his tired eyes on her. “Would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

He shook his head.

“Can you tell me exactly what happened before, during and after you tried to establish the horcrux link?”

“I was having trouble sleeping,” he explained slowly, “so I went down for a glass of water but ended up staying in the living room, watching some videos of Harry and Tom with the kids. I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly I was aware of a thread coming out of my chest. I followed the thread and for the longest time nothing happened. The thread was never-ending, until I finally saw a person, or rather their outline. I was about to call out for Voldemort when I abruptly woke up and as I woke up, it felt like the thread connecting me to Voldemort snapped and disappeared. It was so sudden, I thought – I thought – it felt as though my chest was hollow and I felt miserable.”

The boy looked like he would cry again, but Luna simply gave him some more calming draught.

“Harry tells me you attempted the horcrux link before.” The boy nodded. “But that you didn’t see the connection. What was different this time round that it allowed you to see the thread?”

“I don’t know.”

She smiled kindly and knowingly at the teen. “I think you do, Harry. You’re just reluctant to admit it.”

To Tom’s surprise, the boy blushed furiously and suddenly he found his lap extremely interesting to look at.

Wringing his hands together and with a shaky breath, the teen answered, “I was thinking how much I want to have what Harry and Tom have; how much I want to see if the Voldemort I know could be a good husband and father just like Tom is.”

By the time he finished, he looked mortified, while Harry and he were stunned and speechless. Luna, on the other hand, looked satisfied with the boy’s answer.

“And when you woke up you thought that the connection was broken? That you have lost your one and only chance to get hold of him?”

“I guess,” he mumbled, shrugging and avoiding eye contact with Luna.

“Well, let me tell you that you’re still very much a horcrux and that your connection to Voldemort is intact,” she told him cheerfully. “Just because you are unable to see it or feel it at present, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. However, actively seeking out the link helps you become more aware of it over time. Therefore, my advice to you, Harry, would be to seek out the connection you have with Voldemort as often as you can to strengthen it. That way you won’t have a mental breakdown every time you wake up, feeling hollow.”

Younger Harry’s cheeks flushed redder. “Okay.”

“I would also like to know when exactly you went to sleep this morning.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Around four or four and a half, something like that.”

“And you woke up at?”

“Around ten.”

“So, you got about five hours of sleep.”

He nodded.

“After you eat something, I advise you that you go back to sleep for another four hours at least. Get some quality rest.”

She patted him gently on the head, bid them all farewell and left for the door. Tom escorted her to the exit, only for her to stop and turn to him. “If he gets agitated again and he can’t calm himself in ten minutes, administer a few drops of the calming draught.”

He nodded. “We will. Thank you.”

She smiled, only to grow serious once more. “Any news on the children?” she asked in a whisper.

“Only that they are with my counterpart in younger Harry’s dimension,” he explained. “We’re trying to get the other Harry to communicate with the other Voldemort so we can pass on messages through them between Harry and I and the children, while we look for ways of getting the dimensional portal open.”

“I see, well when the boy establishes contact, would you let Rodolphus and I know? I am sure Reynard would appreciate any new developments in regards to Catriona; he does seem to be rather fond of her and her sudden disappearance has affected him greatly.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “Are you implying that your son has feelings for my daughter? Feelings beyond friendship?”

“Not that he’s said anything explicitly, but it certainly appears to be the case. Anyway, I had better go check on Hermione and her baby as well as Ron and his pregnancy; he is due to give birth one of these days. Goodbye, my Lord.”

With that, she curtsied and left him gaping at the door.

Reynard Lestrange … a Pureblood wizard in love with Catriona Riddle … a Squib. He was still coming to terms with Delphini’s marriage to a demon and here was Reynard pining after his little Catriona, who was most likely completely oblivious to his feelings, because she was busy studying and training her dance routines.

It’s not that the boy was a bigot who would mistreat his daughter for being a Squib, because both Rodolphus and Luna have taught him better than what Lucius and so many other Death Eaters have taught their children; it was the fact that he was interested in his daughter, who was not even fifteen yet, that bothered him. He knew it was hypocritical of him to prevent his teenage daughter from pursuing a relationship before she became a legal adult if she wanted when he had pursued Harry when he was only fifteen, but as far as he was concerned, Catriona had no business being in a romantic relationship before she turned seventeen or graduated from the Institute.

Recovering from his shock, he returned to the living room.

“I’m sorry,” muttered the boy.

“About what?” inquired Harry confused.

“For watching your family videos without permission. I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t know what came over me to watch them.”

“You have nothing to apologise, Harry,” said his husband gently, caressing the other Harry’s hair paternally. “You can watch them whenever you want.”

“No. I have _no_ business watching private moments of _your_ family,” hissed the teen spitefully. “Just like I have no business _envying_ you or _lusting_ after _your_ husband.”

Harry and Tom stared at the teenager in astonishment.

“Harry?” his consort said breathlessly. “What are you talking about?”

The boy got up, looking furious and frustrated … at himself. “Yesterday,” he said through clenched teeth, “before dinner, when you were upstairs having sex, I heard every single thing and you know what I did? I _masturbated_! I got hard thinking about your husband and I touched myself thinking about him! Wishing I was in your place! But then, when I was about to come … I pictured Voldemort and –” The teen laughed, but there was no mirth in his laugh. “I came thinking about snake face. I came thinking he was the one fucking me. I even moaned his fucking name.”

He was getting agitated again; tears were sliding down his face again. His mirthless laughter turned into hysterical sobbing.

“What’s wrong with me?” he hiccoughed, shaking violently. “What’s happening to me? Why am I feeling like this? I don’t like it! I don’t want to feel like this! How can I want Voldemort when he’s done nothing but hurt me? How can I want to have a family with him, when we’ve been nothing but enemies?”

Harry tried to reach for the boy to soothe him, but he jerked away, backing far away from him and Tom, looking like a cornered animal. “Don’t touch me!” he snarled at them.

“Harry, please, calm down. Breathe.”

“What I _need_ is to go _back_ to how things were _before_ I came here!” he yelled. “Ignorant to the fact that you two are happily married! Ignorant to the fact that you have beautiful, wonderful children! Ignorant to the fact that I am Voldemort’s horcrux! _That’s_ what I need!”

He made a beeline for the stairs, leaving Harry and him confused and alarmed. They both feared the boy would harm himself in this highly sensitive and agitated state of mind – Tom having sudden flashbacks to Salazar in the hospital wing with bandaged wrists because he took a knife to his wrists.

Before Harry could say anything, Tom told him to fetch a Calming Draught and he bolted up the stairs after the hysterical teenager, who sought refuge inside Salazar’s room. He was about to slam the door shut, when Tom leant with all his might against the wooden frame and brute forced his way inside the room.

In his hysteria, the boy yelled at him to go away, to leave him be, but Tom kept advancing on him, backing him into a corner and cutting off escape routes. The boy tried to pass him, only for Tom to grab hold of him and pull him towards him – back to chest –, pinning his arms to his body. The boy struggled like a man possessed, trying to free himself from his constraining hold. He kicked and screamed his lungs out, but Tom was stronger. He lifted the boy and dragged him to the bed, where he proceeded to cage his legs as well.

As soon as he saw Harry at the door, he held the boy’s head in place by pressing hard on the teen’s forehead with his hand and ordered his consort to pour some of the draught into younger Harry’s mouth.

The boy, however, refused to open his mouth and between Harry and him, they pried his mouth open and force-fed him the sedative, waited for it to take effect, and only when the boy had gone limp in Tom’s arms, he let go of the teen.

Several moments passed before either of them said anything and so the silence stretched between them as they gathered their bearings, for they were out of breath and tired after struggling with teenage Harry.

His consort was the one to break the silence. “What now, Tom?” He looked at him, sitting on the bed. “What do we do from here?”

“For now, we let the boy sleep.” He sat up, rubbing his face. “I am half tempted to restrain his hands so he doesn’t harm himself in case he has another hysterical attack when he wakes. After he wakes up, talk to him.”

“And what do I say to him?” Harry snorted self-deprecatingly.

“Anything you have to say to get the boy to be calm and willing to assist us.”

“What about you? Why can’t you be the one to talk to him?”

He turned to his consort, a baffled look on his face. “You heard him, Harry. He _wants_ me. He gets _aroused_ when I am near him, which subsequently makes him _panic_. If I attempted a conversation with him … _alone_ , we would be in for another similar incident.”

“What if we spoke to him together?” Harry suggested.

He let out a sigh. “I don’t think it would be a good idea. The boy would combust from shame if I was in the same room as him, after admitting to getting hard because of me and masturbating to me in front of us.”

“And you think it won’t be awkward if _I_ speak to him and treat him like nothing is wrong, after he told me he feels _jealous_ of me, of the _family_ I have, of the _husband_ I have? That he wishes he could _have my life_?”

“You have a point.”

“Of course I have a point,” Harry huffed. “Our safest bet is to acknowledge what the boy said – agitated or not – and make him see that we don’t think any less of him for saying what he said, but that he can’t have you, because you’re _mine_ and he can’t be me, because as much as we are the same person, we are also _not_ the same person. That if he wants something akin to what we have built over the years, then he’ll have to look and work for it in his own dimension with his own Voldemort, not here in our dimension with you.”

Smirking, he stood up and walked over to Harry, pulling him up so he could wrap his arms around him and kiss him. Harry melted into him.

“So, you _are_ jealous that I make your counterpart all hot and bothered?” he teased, whispering huskily against his consort’s lips.

“If I wasn’t before, I am now.” He grabbed the back of his head. “I know you have looked like a sex god ever since your soul healed completely, but that doesn’t mean I am fond of the idea of my counterpart lusting after you, when he has his own Voldemort to worry about.”

“Now you know how I felt when my horcruxes were trying to seduce you when you were already _my_ husband.”

He sighed. “Yeah, now I know and it feels awful.”

Tom pecked him on the lips. “As long as you understand, my love.” He grinned against his mouth as Harry claimed and devoured his lips.

“You know,” Harry said after separating, “if you hadn’t teased my counterpart so much, if you hadn’t fucked me in front of him … it probably wouldn’t have got this bad for the boy.”

His eyebrow arched. “So it’s my fault the boy has it bad for me?”

“Of course it’s you’re doing.”

“Then maybe I should start using my Voldemort disguise,” he said casually.

“So that the boy can start falling for your snake features too? No way.”

He snorted, baffled. “Then what am I supposed to look like, because those two looks are the only ones I have.”

“The only snake features that boy should be falling for are the other Voldemort’s snake features. Not yours,” said Harry sternly. “And once the other Voldemort feels like becoming whole again, all his Greek god hotness will belong to my counterpart.”

Tom laughed, hugging Harry close. “Let’s go eat breakfast,” he said, kissing his temple tenderly.

“Will _you_ cook?”

“For you … anytime.” He winked.


End file.
